Kingdom Hearts III: Shattered Memory
by Frozen-Raven
Summary: Sequel to Kingdom Hearts II: The Other Side.  A month after the events that happened previously, Yuffie and Cid began the search for their missing companions but little did they know that a person could have changed alot in just one month...
1. Chapter 1

**Kingdom Hearts III: Shattered Memory**

**Chapter one: The search!**

Both Cid and Yuffie have been traveling from world to world for three weeks to search for Zane or Ziad and Laguna but their search was futile since there wasn't even a clue as to where they disappeared to except for Zane, he was supposed to be on the Promised Land but the only thing that they know about that place is that it had a huge grass field where they saw Zane last

"It seems like we might not ever be able to find them…" Cid said as there was hardly anything left for him to continue searching except for Yuffie's determination since his own hopes had been destroyed

"We can't give up hope! I am sure that if something happened to me, Zane would continue searching for me as long as it takes." Yuffie said as there was nothing that would make her give up hope "We just have to search for a little while longer… Then I am sure we'll find them."

Somewhere in Olympus...

Riku and Sora were captured a month ago by Hades and were sent to the gallows and they shared the same cell.

"When do you think we are getting out?" Riku asked Sora in a worried way.

"I haven't the foggiest idea!"

"I won't be able to go on much longer like this, I will go crazy!

If we just knew what happened to Cid and the others then we could probably get out of here."

"Yeah, I haven't heard of them at all since we came here."

"I wonder where Hercules is."

"I don't know, especially since his coliseum is destroyed I think that he is dead."

"Probably… Man! This is making me crazy!"

"I think I already am! Being a month in lockup is not really easy to bear with."

One month ago in Olympus Sora had encountered Cerberus the three headed dog "It's Cerberus, let's skedaddle!" Goofy said in a frightened way

"Run!" Came the following response from Sora

They ran for a while until they came to a dead end and Cerberus was on their tail and before they knew it, he was behind them.

"Sora, Riku we must fight!" The king said

"Right!" So they took their weapons and Sora and Riku teamed up and defeated one head only two were left, that was goofy, Donald and Mickey's job but they didn't do it so well and Donald almost got eaten up by it but then suddenly Hades appeared and he let Cerberus go but not before taking their power from them

He took it since they were in the underworld and in the underworld Hades is the boss and he locked Sora and the others up when they lost their power.

Back in the present...

"Riku why don't you just teleport us out of here?"

"You think that I didn't try that already? I tried on the very first day but it's no use my power is gone!" He said with a tone of anger

"Yeah mine too, I used to be able to take my Keyblade at any time but now I don't have the power to take it."

So Riku now sat down and tried to make himself comfortable.

"I wonder what happened to the king and Donald and Goofy."

"They are probably in another cell somewhere. Sora replied bored from sitting inside the cell."

"I just hope that someone will come and help us."

In the meantime Kairi and Selphie came up with a plan "Okay I have a plan!" Kairi nearly shouted

"What is it?" Selphie asked anxiously

"I am going to Olympus and save Sora and Riku."

"How are you going to do that?" Cloud this time asked when he heard her say about going somewhere while they don't have an airship.

"I have some power but I don't know exactly how to use it yet."

"Well how do you plan on going to Olympus then?"

"I used once my power and I was teleported to some place I didn't know so maybe I can do it again but maybe this time I can be teleported to where Sora and Riku are."

"Well it might work, but if he is in trouble how will you defend yourself?"

"I… I have a Keyblade."

"You do?"

So Kairi stretched her arm and a light appeared in her hand and a Keyblade appeared after a few seconds in her hands.

"I don't know how but I suddenly had a Keyblade."

"Wow looks beautiful!" Tifa had come inside and she saw Kairi's Keyblade which was made of metal and had flowers on it.

"So I guess we will try and go tomorrow."

"So soon?" Tifa said and started leaning on Cloud's shoulder

"Yeah, I don't want to wait anymore."

"Okay I guess." Tifa said with a sad tone

"Call me if you need help, then I will try to find a way to help you."

"Okay." So she and Selphie left and went early to bed

"Do you think they will be allright on their own?"

"I don't think so, but what can I do?"

"You could go with them."

Cloud was shocked at what Tifa said but quickly understood and agreed

Somewhere in space Cid thought he had finally found the Promised Land "Yuffie! Get over here I think that I found the Promised Land!" Cid shouted

Yuffie directly awoke from her sleep and she got up so fast that she nearly fell but she kept her balance and ran towards Cid "Where?"

"Look over there!"

Cid pointed to world in the distance which was pretty dark.

"Great! How long will it take to reach that world and land?"

"About a half hour, just enough time to prepare our stuff!" Cid turned to look at Yuffie but she was already gone.

"What about my stuff?" Cid said to himself

Yuffie was very quick and she took her weapon in case they find Sephiroth or anything else and she took some flashlights and then hurried back to Cid.

"All ready!"

"That's quick! What about my stuff?"

"What about your stuff?"

"Where is it?"

"Oh it's still in the cargo area, by the way the only thing that you will need is your spear and a flashlight." And Yuffie handed him the flashlight that she took.

"Thanks."

"So how long till now?"

"About 15 minutes and if I hurry then perhaps 10."

"Okay hurry then."

"Sure will!" Cid pushed a button and they directly went faster and within 10 minutes they landed "Smooth and easy!"

Cid pushed some buttons and the power from the airship went out and afterwards they went to the cargo area

Cid opened the hatch and he took his spear and followed Yuffie outside in the open area where the only thing they could see was some trees and some owls and the endless grass field

So they walked for a while North until they got to a ruin which looked exactly like the one they saw in the world where they almost got killed by the villagers

"Hey isn't this the same ruin that we were in before?" Cid asked

"Yeah, but how can it be here?"

"Don't know, but that ain't important now." And Cid moved away and they walked for about another hour until they were too tired to go on they had decided to make a camp.

"I will take some wood."

"Okay but hurry!" Yuffie shouted to him as he left.

"Sure will!" He shouted back and continued to walk in the distance, he found some branches after a while and he was heading back but he couldn't stop feeling like somebody or something was watching him the whole time. "Damn imagination!"

Once Cid came back it seemed to have gotten darker and his flashlight didn't work so well anymore but he could see Yuffie sitting on the floor so he put the branches down and he took a lighter from his pocket and lighted the branches, after the fire had gotten higher he saw that Yuffie was not herself "What's wrong Yuffie?"

"What if we can't find him? What will I do?" She said as her eyes were getting watery

Cid also sat now and he was thinking for a bit on how he could soothe her. "We will surely find him, don't worry if I say that we will find him then we will!"

Cid's words relieved Yuffie a bit but she couldn't shake off the feeling that something bad would happen.

So instead of worrying she was going to lie down and sleep.

When Cid finally saw that she was asleep he quickly took a bottle from his pocket and took a few sips and then he put it back and also went to sleep.

When Yuffie was asleep she had a dream about him, she saw the place where he was fighting Sephiroth and when he fell to his knees and when it was supposed to stop when Sephiroth got near him and was about to strike it still went on and she saw Sephiroth cut him in his arm and then he slashed the whole time as if making art and he was shouting from the pain

She wanted to help him but she was frozen in her place and after Sephiroth slaughtered him he came walking slowly to her with a smile on his face and said something

She awoke with a scream and she saw that it was morning but still dark, Cid woke up from her scream and got worried. "You okay?" Cid asked as he had shocked

"Yeah just a horrible dream." She said and stood up and they directly moved on but she couldn't forget his words in her dream "You will never find him" Those words stayed with her.

After some time walking they saw smoke coming from the distance and they rushed to see what was happening and when they came near they saw a village burned and Sephiroth was there and he was killing them one by one with a smile on his face as he saw them he just looked and then he said one thing "Death!" after that he disappeared and everything became normal and the village was there and people were walking around.

Cid and Yuffie looked at each other not knowing if what they saw was real or not.

"Shall we go in?" Cid asked

"... No." Yuffie said and they passed the village and moved on until they came to a house in the middle of nowhere


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two: Illusions**

They went inside the house and they saw Aerith sitting on a chair.

Aerith! Yuffie shouted and ran towards Aerith and wanted to hug her but she fell right through her.

"What the!" Cid nearly shouted from disbelief

Yuffie stood up and she tried to touch her but her hands just went through, suddenly the door smashed open and a man with spiky black hair and black clothes came inside with a boy in his hands, he put him down on the bed and she saw that it was Zane and he was badly wounded.

"I found this boy wounded outside." The man said to Aerith

"What happened?"

"I think that he is another victim of Sephiroth, look at the cuts."

"Yeah, these cuts are from Sephiroth's sword. I wonder how he survived…"

"Shall we help him?"

"Yeah until he wakes up."

Suddenly the illusion went very fast and it seemed like days had gone by and Zane looked a bit better until it went normal again.

"Look he's waking up." Aerith said happily

But when he woke up they shocked and the man took his sword from his back but Aerith stopped him.

"Wait for a second!" She nearly shouted and the man waited as she turned her attention to Zane who had red eyes and from his body came black smoke as if he was a heartless but it didn't stay too long and he soon returned to normal which surprised the man

"Ahhh, where am I?" Zane asked as he sat straight on the bed and he didn't recognize where he was

"You're on the Promised Land, we found you nearly dead out in the field but Aerith here is one hell of a healer."

"Promised Land? When did I come here? ... I remember now I fought Sephiroth but just before he could kill me some man appeared and fought him, he had brown hair and one wing behind his back but I collapsed soon after…" Zane said when suddenly his whole body ached and the heartless came in control of his body again "Hehehe, You shouldn't have saved him!" He said while laughing creepily and then stood up and tried to hit Aerith but she dodged just in time and he then quickly ran out the door

"He's possessed by a Heartless?" Zack asked Aerith since he had never something like that before

"I guess… Shall we follow him?"

"No, it's too dangerous and we don't know if he'll return to normal."

"Yeah, you are right..." Aerith said disappointed and the illusion faded and only the stone floor and the endless sky remained.

"Zane is possessed by a Heartless?" Yuffie said not expecting an answer as she had never expected that

"At least we know that he is alive right?" Cid asked her to make sure if what he saw was good

"I don't know, this is just an illusion so it isn't necessarily true."

"We continue our search then and get the answer from Zane himself!" So they moved on once again this time Sephiroth's words were a knife in her heart but she knew that she shouldn't believe any word or illusion from Sephiroth as they are mostly lies

In the meantime Kairi and Selphie were prepared to leave "Okay we are leaving! Kairi said and waved her hand towards them.

"We will go with you!" Cloud said and stood beside her with Tifa

"You will?"

"We can't let two young girls go alone on such a journey now can we." Tifa said with a smile.

"Thanks." Kairi smiled back and she tried to use her power and a light appeared.

"Be back with good news!" Leon said from the back while they were going through the light portal.

"Take care, Cloud and don't come back dead!" Barret said just before he went through he nodded and they were gone.

"So what are we going to do more with the town?" Rhinoa asked her husband

"Well we are going to put more defenses with the city borders and teach the people how to use a sword and defend the city if we get attacked again."

"Planning on retiring?" She asked with a sneaky smile

"No, not retiring but I need rest."

"How about we teach them on how to use a gun as well?" Irvine asked

"It's a good idea but we will need a person who can make us guns and swords."

"I know just the man!" Barret said

"Who?" They all asked

"Well the man who made my Gunarm can surely make swords and guns and I saw him not long ago around here somewhere."

"Great, take him and we will start making the defenses and then we will teach the people once he finishes some weapons." Leon said with a cheerful smile

"I sure will!"

Kairi and the others went through the portal and they came in a dark place and they could hardly see anything "So they are most likely around here somewhere?" Tifa asked and looked around to see if there was somewhere light but she couldn't see any

"I guess." Kairi said

"Okay let's move then!" Cloud said as they began walking in a direction not knowing what would lie in front of them, suddenly they heard talking and as they got nearer they heard that it was Sora and Riku

"It's Sora and Riku!" Kairi jumped from joy and she ran to where the voices came from as she came to a door she could hear the voices right behind she tried to open the door but she couldn't "It's stuck!"

"Here let me try!" Tifa went to the door and kicked a few times and punched it but it didn't open "I guess that didn't work out! You can slash it open though it's just wood."

So Cloud went to the door and took his sword and slashed at the door opening it a little bit, he slashed a few more times and the door now had a big hole in it, they went through it but it was even darker in there, they walked for a while but the voices were gone.

"Where are they!" Kairi almost shouted

They finally came to a cell and they saw Riku and Sora inside but unconscious "Sora, Riku!" Kairi shouted and tried to open the cell door but it was too strong for her so Cloud opened the door and he took them both in his arms and they turned to leave but Hades was in front of them.

"Leaving so soon?" He said with a bored face

"What did you do to them?" Kairi asked Hades angrily

"They just collapsed from hunger that's all, and by the way Cloud what are _you_ doing here?"

"What do you mean?"

"Must I always go into details? Oh well I guess I could tell you, you were supposed to be training new recruits nowadays shouldn't you?"

"How the hell did you know?"

"Well nothing is kept a secret from me; I even know what happened to your friend Zane."

"And how would you know?" This time Selphie asked

"Did I talk to you! Little miss pigtails." Hades said angrily to Selphie and turned his attention back to Cloud "Well I heard that he is in the Promised Land and that he lost but isn't dead yet instead your best friend Zack found him and treated him with ... what did you call her again? Ah! Yes Aerith."

"But they are dead!"

"Now now there's no need to be so stubborn they are alive and well and they helped Zane until they found out that he was a heartless!" Hades replied as he began laughing

"You piece of-"

"Hold your tongue spike-head! Before I will cut it off."

"Let's get out of here!" Kairi said and tried to open the portal again but nothing happened.

"Oh did I forget to tell you? Here in the underworld Heroes are ZEROS!"

"We have to get out of here!" Tifa shouted and started running and the rest followed.

"Oh so you are leaving already? I guess I will just have to give you my present then!" Hades whistled and Cerberus came. "After them!"

Cerberus ran after them but they were too fast and they went up some stairs into the light and they saw that Cerberus couldn't go up and when they looked outside they saw a coliseum destroyed.

Cloud had put the 2 boys softly down and stared at it and wondered how many people died that day.

But then they saw a figure in the distance and it looked like he was searching for something "Who's that?" Tifa asked

"Don't know I will check." Cloud said and directly walked towards the figure until he could see that he was wearing black robes and he knew that the organization had those clothes on

"Who are you?" Cloud asked to make sure that he was one of them before he strikes him down

"Former Organization member." The man replied softly and he continued searching until he found what he was searching for

"Finally, I have it! The medallion that can make me strong in the underworld!"

Cloud was getting confused as a nobody can't lose his power as he doesn't even exist "What do you mean?" Cloud asked but the man didn't reply instead some light went over him and then he threw the medallion to Cloud and he caught it.

"Use it and get out of here before it's too late!" And then the man disappeared in a black smoke and Cloud went back to the others and he could see that Sora and Riku were awake now but weakened.

"So who was it?" Tifa asked Cloud with a curious face

"He was a member from the organization but he somehow lost his power as well and he gave me this medallion." Cloud showed them the medallion and they could see that it was made of pure gold and had a lightning mark on it.

"Was?" Selphie asked who was sitting now beside Riku.

"Yeah he said that he was a former organization member." Cloud said while not believing it himself

"Can we just get out of here?" Riku asked in a low but angry voice

"Yeah sure, just wait one second." Cloud took the medallion in his hands and a light appeared all over them and they felt like their power had returned

"So what about the king and the others did you find them?" Sora this time asked as he stood up weakly

"No, they are not here." Cloud replied while looking down as he couldn't help them

"Look we will search for them later but now you will need rest so that we can search for them and not get caught in the process." Tifa said and she looked at Kairi and she nodded

"Okay I will open the portal." Kairi stretched her hand and a light appeared both Riku and Sora stood with their mouths wide open as they couldn't believe that Kairi had the power of light.

"How did you do that?" Riku asked since he knew that only Zane could do that but he didn't have it naturally.

"I don't know but I have it some way." She answered back

"Okay on we go!" Cloud said and went through the light and the rest followed until they came back to Hollow Bastion outside Merlin's place and they could see that it was already night.

So they went inside Merlin's place but they didn't see anyone inside so they just put Sora and Riku in a bed and then Cloud asked them what happened and they both told him what happened and they listened quietly.

And about an hour later Leon and the others came back and they were surprised to see them back "Well if it isn't Riku and Sora!" Leon came inside with a face full of sweat most likely he was working hard again

"Heya!" Sora replied

"Where's the king and the others?" Rhinoa asked as she walked beside Leon

"We don't know." Riku answered

"Well anyway you will need some rest before we go again." Irvine said and sat down on Cid's chair and he was checking his computer

"Go where?" This time Selphie asked

"To Cid of course and then we will search for the king and Donald and Goofy."

"How do we go anywhere without an airship?" Cloud asked and stood up and walked to Irvine to see what he was doing with Cid's computer

"Easy, I will send a message to Jessica and tell her we need her airship for a while."

"And you think she will agree?"

"If I just tell her that Cid is in danger than she will come rushing to us." Irvine said with a sneaky smile

"Okay, do it!"

"Okay, let's rock!" Irvine said and started typing the message and after he finished he sent it to Jessica

"Well I am going to bed now, so sleep well Sora and all of you." Rhinoa said and went outside and soon Leon also went outside and Marlene was tired so Barret went with Marlene to his own house that he made within a month and Kairi and Selphie went to Yuffie's house which they made their own now and the only ones left were Irvine, Merlin, and Sora and Riku were already sleeping.

"So you think that somebody is going to come for this fool?" Merlin asked Irvine in a sarcastic way

"I think so Merlin and Cid is not a fool."

"He is more than just a FOOL!" Merlin nearly shouted

"Shhhh, do you want Sora and Riku to wake up?"

"Whatever." And Merlin went to his own bed and went to sleep

"I guess I will be the only one awake." Irvine said to himself and turned to look at the computer


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three: Is it real?**

Cid and Yuffie were walking through the grassy fields and swamps until they came to a thick forest where the air felt strange like something evil "Man! This place is so thick that I can't see even a light in the distance! If I was on my airship now we wouldn't have to move through this forest." Cid was very pissed as the branches from the trees were cutting him all over

"Well if he is here then we can't go by airship now can we?" Yuffie asked

"Yeah, I guess." Cid said still pissed while he pushed the branches away

So they walked for a while longer until they saw someone in jeans in the distance and a torn white t-shirt and Yuffie directly recognized him and she ran happily towards him and Cid followed her

When he turned around they saw that he had shining red eyes and he didn't look very much the same as he was before, he now had a big cut in his cheek and another on his hand and he looked like he hadn't slept for a week "What are you doing here?" Zane asked them in a fearful way

"What do you mean? We came because we knew that you weren't dead." Yuffie directly went to hug him, he hugged her back but a few seconds later he broke the hug and pushed her a bit away

"No, you must run!" Zane said but this time he looked sad and it looked like he was going to cry but it looked like he couldn't

"The hell! We came here not for nothing, you are coming with us." Cid said a bit angry

"I ... can't, if I do then you might die."

"What do you mean? We can get easily out of here." Yuffie was now getting afraid as she never saw him this afraid and sad before

"I still have the Heartless in me and I can't control it anymore!" Zane said and then his head started to hurt again and he fell to his knees

"Zane?" Yuffie was now getting more afraid

"Must push back!" Zane was fighting the heartless in his mind and he won and stood back up "I don't know how long I can keep this Heartless away and I don't want you to put your lives in danger because of me."

"We will be there for you and help you find a way to get rid o the Heartless within you." Yuffie said and hoped that he would agree but instead Zane looked like he was going on fire and he did

His body started to go in black flames as he began screaming from pain and then Sephiroth reappeared as the black flames had disappeared

"Zane are you okay?" Yuffie quickly went to Zane who was crouching on the floor as his whole body ached

"Hahahahaha! I told you that you will find only death." Sephiroth was laughing and he looked happy in his way

"What the hell do you want!" Cid asked Sephiroth angrily and took a fighting stance

"I want to destroy the world and every living thing and create a new and it will start with Zane! SIN HARVEST!" Sephiroth shouted and a dark ball flew to Zane and it went in him and soon it came out and went inside Sephiroth and a bright light surrounded Sephiroth

"I will show you my POWER!"

"We have to get out of here!" Cid shouted and he took Zane on his shoulder and they both ran away, they ran all the way back to the airship and it was getting dark and they could still see the light in the distance from Sephiroth

Cid went inside the airship and he put Zane down on the floor and quickly closed the hatch after Yuffie came and he took Zane again and went to the bridge and he put him quickly down on the sofa and started the engines and he pushed a few buttons and the airship started to fly "Okay we are leaving!"

They flew outside of the Promised Land and they could still see the light that was going to Sephiroth but they also saw a mysterious figure flying away with one wing and a few minutes later the whole world just exploded and Sephiroth was nowhere to be seen

"I have a feeling that this won't be the last I will see of him." Cid said in an unhappy way

Yuffie was sitting beside Zane on the sofa and she was very worried that he wouldn't survive as everything slowed down with him, his breathing and his heartbeat were all going slow

"Is it real? All what happened… Is it all real?" Yuffie asked as she didn't know what to believe

"Unfortunately it is Yuffie." Cid said and he too felt like he didn't know what to believe

Then the same man in black and the woman who had long brown hair suddenly came walking to them from the hall "Another illusion?" Cid now was getting crazy as he felt enough from Sephiroth's tricks

"Cid?" Aerith said while she got closer

Cid didn't answer as he wasn't sure that this was real but they came closer and she saw Yuffie and she walked towards her now and hugged her

"It's been a long time Yuffie!" She was very happy that she met them again after she thought that she would never be able to see them anymore because she died

"You are real?" Yuffie asked since she didn't really believe after what Sephiroth just did to them

"Yes of course! What did you expect?" She asked as Zack was standing beside her now and Cid went to stand beside Yuffie

"I don't know anymore, Sephiroth made me go crazy."

"So I see that you brought the boy with you." Zack said

"Yeah he is a friend of ours." Cid said

"You know we helped him before when he was wounded until he ran away." Aerith said

"We know Sephiroth showed us." Yuffie said

"So tell me how did you get on my airship?"

"It was easy I just hacked your password and I got inside." Zack said

"I guess it's too easy. Well anyway Aerith how did you survive?"

"I don't know I suddenly found myself on the Promised Land were I met Zack again and we lived together since then."

"That's weird." Cid said while he was checking his pockets for his drink but he didn't find it

"Damn! I lost it!"

"You lost what?" Yuffie asked

"My Carpatante! I had it with me but not anymore. It was the last one I had left, now I have to wait a month until it will bloom again!"

"What is Carpa… whatever?" Zack asked

So they told them about the Carpatante and also told them about the journey before and they finished after an hour

"All that happened and I didn't know." Aerith said looking shocked

"Yeah and I don't know if Zane also is going to be okay." Yuffie said

"Well as long as he has the Heartless in him then I think that he will survive." Zack said

"Zack, can the Heartless go away?" Cid asked as he was wondering if Zane could ever be normal again

"I don't know but it's a possibility that when the Heartless is gone that Zane would die… I guess it all depends on how the Heartless came to be in him in the first place."

"So what are we supposed to do?" Cid asked because he didn't know at all what to do

"Wait till he wakes up again I suppose." He answered back

"How long do you think that Zane will stay like this?" Yuffie now asked

"I am guessing that if he does wake up it will either be himself or the Heartless." Zack said while Yuffie held Zane's hand and hoped that he would wake up normal

"So I guess we are going back to Hollow Bastion then." Cid said but Aerith disagreed

"Can you do me a favor before that and fly to the world Kartoha?" Aerith said and looked at Cid

"I guess I could do that but where is it?"

"I don't really know but I do know how it looks like."

"Anything is better than nothing!"

"It's a world that looks like a lot of ruins and thick forests."

"Why the hell are we going to a place like that!"

"Because I believe that my ancestors are living there."

"Your ancestors?" Yuffie now asked as she knew that they had mysteriously disappeared from their world

"I had a dream about them and they most likely have the answer to why I still am alive."

"Okay searching we go!" Cid said and chose a direction and went with full speed

In the meantime at Merlin's place Sora and Riku were feeling a lot better and they went both out bed and they were helping out with the city's defenses

"Leon, did you hear any news from Ziad or Laguna?" Sora asked while he was busy with putting the turrets in the ground

"No, we haven't heard of them at all." He answered and he wired the turret to the electric socket

"What about Zane?" This time Riku asked

"Don't know but Cid is searching for him with Yuffie"

"Why don't ya call him?" Barret asked while he was taking more turrets on his arm

"The problem is that he is out of range for quite a while already."

"Oh great." Riku said in an unhappy way

Then suddenly Irvine came running with a look of fear on his face "Guys! Maleficent is here and she has a horde of Heartless with her!"

"Where!" Leon quickly asked as he took his Gunblade from the floor

"At the southern gate."

"What about our defenses that were there?"

"She destroyed them in a blink of an eye!"

"Okay everyone let's go kick some Heartless!"

Everyone took their weapons and they were heading towards the southern gate.

Once they got to the southern gate they saw that it was completely ruined and the Heartless and Maleficent were not here anymore.

"You are a bit late!" Came a voice from behind and as Leon turned around he saw the redheaded Turk with his bald buddy Reno and Rude, and they were also bleeding all over their face.

"Where are they!" Leon asked and walked towards them

"In the city, we tried to stop them but as you can see they kicked our butts easily coz of this wretched woman." Reno said angrily and he took a tissue and wiped some blood from his face

"Okay everyone in the city!" Leon said and quickly went running towards the city until they came to Merlin's place they heard some screams and once they got inside they saw Maleficent and some heartless fighting Rhinoa, Tifa, Kairi, Selphie and Merlin.

"Rhinoa!" Leon ran to her and he killed the heartless and quickly turned his attention to Rhinoa

"You okay?" He asked her and she nodded

"So you all have finally come? I was getting worried that I wouldn't have the fun to kill all of you!" Maleficent said and started to chant something as she held her hands up they saw a dark light appear and it was getting big.

"You will not kill all of us!" Irvine quickly shot her but nothing happened so he ran quickly and lunged with his fist at her and he hit her hard in the face and then he quickly kicked her in the torso and she fell down hard

"You! You will suffer endless pain!" She quickly stood up and she started to go in black flames and they knew what was going to happen so they quickly ran outside and the house exploded sending them flying in the air and landing on the roofs and when they looked back at the house they saw a huge black dragon.

"We must kill her now!" Cloud said and stood up and took his sword

"Okay quick tactics! Barret, Irvine, Reno and Rude you attack from above and Rhinoa, Selphie, Kairi and Merlin you stay on the back and cast magic while the rest will attack her head on!" Leon said and quickly after that they were taking their position

Barret and the others already started firing their guns while Merlin and the girls were casting ice magic which froze Maleficent for a while Leon quickly slashed his sword a few times to her legs

Riku and the others were doing the same with the other legs except Cloud he went head-on on her body and went straight to her head but she was shaking her body and Cloud fell of falling hard to the ground hitting his head and he was unconscious

"Cloud!" Tifa saw him fall down and she quickly ran towards him and she saw that his head was bleeding and he was unconscious

But now the dragon was getting pissed and she spit fire all around her just missing Cloud and Tifa by an inch

Then she spit fire towards Rude and the others they had ducked just in time and now Irvine targeted the dragon and shot her in the eye making it shout in pain and it started to bleed

The others did the same and they shot the other eye while Riku went now on top and when he was about to strike it disappeared making him fall hard to the floor landing on his back and Selphie quickly ran towards him to see if he was okay and he was and he stood up with only some pain from his back

"Damn! She escaped!" Riku said angrily while rubbing his back

Leon saw Cloud unconscious in Tifa's arms and he went to them to check on him

"How is he?" He asked while checking around to see if there were anymore heartless coming but he didn't see any

"His head is bleeding pretty badly, we will have to bring him to the medical center." She said and turned her attention to Cloud

"Okay I will let Barret go with you and take Cloud to the center while we will stay here and try to find another empty house so that we can sleep somewhere and then we will try to fix this house."

So they went to the medical center and Barret was lifting Cloud while Leon and the others were searching for another house but they have little luck finding one.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four: The forgotten Race**

A few days have passed and Zane finally woke up and he found himself in the airship's bedroom and he tried to stand up but he nearly fell down so he used the bed's wood as an support and he stood up

He took a clean grey shirt from the bed and put it on as he walked afterwards near the walls and walked slowly to the bridge where he saw Cid, Yuffie, Aerith and Zack

He slowly walked towards them and sat on the nearby couch and they were startled at the sound and they turned around and they saw him.

"Zane! You are awake?" Yuffie said and ran to sit beside him

"Yeah, I guess." He answered weakly as his head also hurt him

"You are supposed to stay in bed!" Aerith said

"You expect me to stay in a bed doing nothing?"

"Yo buddy you better relax as we are landing soon." Cid said while he was steering the wheel

"Landing?"

"Yeah we are going to the Cetra's world as Aerith says that we should go there." Yuffie said while checking out Zane's face to see if there was any sign of the Heartless coming back but she didn't see any, he didn't even have the red eyes anymore

"Why?" He asked but suddenly he felt like he needed to vomit so he ran to the bathroom and he vomited blood in the sink and he was shocked to see that.

"Blood?" He thought to himself as he knew that blood was a bad sign and suddenly Cid came inside and saw the blood and he shocked

"What the! You vomit blood?"

"I guess." He said while opening the tap and flushed the blood away

"What are you going to do?"

"There's nothing I can do… Besides I won't die just yet, I have got a lot to do until now." Zane said and stood up and walked slowly to the bridge and Cid followed him

"What's wrong?" Yuffie asked worried

"Nothing just some stomach pain, I guess I slept too long." He said lying as he didn't want them to worry and Cid understood and kept his mouth sealed

But Yuffie saw some blood near his mouth and got worried "What's that blood near your mouth?"

"Huh? What blood?" He checked his mouth and felt the blood coming from his mouth till now and he took a tissue and cleaned it and then turned his attention back to Yuffie

"I bit on my tongue." He said again lying and sat down on the sofa still feeling the pain in his head and Yuffie didn't trust him one bit now but she tried to convince herself that nothing was wrong with him.

Cid was looking at her for a while to try and see if she found out and he could see a slight worry in her face but not much so he turned back to his piloting and a few minutes later they found a world that looked like the one Aerith described.

"Aerith, is this the world?" Cid asked her while pointing at it and she came and looked at it for a while and then nodded so Cid then went a bit faster and he was preparing the land sequence.

"Okay everyone hold on to something because the place is a bit rocky!" He said while pushing a few buttons and he pulled a lever and they landed but a bit hard and the whole airship moved and Zane started to feel sick again but he kept it inside

"We are down!" Cid shouted and he took his spear from the wall but Aerith looked unhappy

"Something wrong Aerith?" Cid asked as he saw her staring at him

"Must you take a spear with you? It is holy ground you know?"

"So?" Cid didn't understand since it was his only protection against monsters

"She means to say that the Cetra won't like it if you take weapons with you." Zack said while he put his sword down

"What if some damned monsters come? Then what!" Cid said getting angry

"There aren't going to be any monsters and if you can't go without your spear then it will be better that you stay here." Aerith was now getting angry and Zane, Yuffie were looking while they exchanged angry glares and at last Aerith won and Cid put his spear down but he stayed unhappy

"Fine, I will let it stay here but if there will be monsters then I will blame you."

"Okay now let's go!" She left already and Zack was right behind her and Cid mumbled a little bit and then followed and Yuffie and Zane both put their weapons down and followed them outside where it was pretty cold and it was snowing and they could hardly see what was in front of them.

"Man! I am freeeeezing!" Zane said and started to shake

"Yeah it's damn cold out here!" Cid said still in an unhappy way and he kept looking around to see if there were any monsters

"Brrrrrrrrrr so where are we going now?" Yuffie asked as she too felt the cold but Aerith and Zack seemed to not even notice the cold

"We go west there should be a ruin there where the Cetra live."

So they moved to the west but Cid, Zane and Yuffie felt like the longer they would stay in this cold the sooner they would be dead frozen in the middle of nowhere like ice cubes lost in a frozen sea.

"I will freeze any minute now! Don't you both feel cold?" Zane asked while he felt his bones stiffening from the cold

"No." Aerith said and stopped suddenly

"What's wrong?" Yuffie asked her as she suddenly stopped and everybody did the same

"There's something here." Aerith said in a low voice

"Didn't I tell you that we need weapons!" Cid was now getting more angry

Then she started to mumble something and a minute later a hole appeared in the ground

"The hell!" Cid almost shouted as the hole was getting bigger and it was getting closer as well

"This hole will bring us to the ruins from the Cetra." Aerith said while walking towards the hole

"You crazy or something!" Cid was now getting afraid since he didn't want to die just yet

Then Zack followed her in the hole and they fell inside without screaming and the hole was getting much faster bigger

"I am not going in that hole!" Zane said and backed away and wanted to run but some kind of force stopped him and they all fell inside screaming as their last thoughts were that they would die.

in the meantime Leon and the others already found a house 2 days ago and Cloud had recovered and they all slept inside while every morning they kept on trying to rebuild their old home

But they had no luck as they just kept on running out of resources until they stopped trying today and they were all trying to rebuild the defenses instead except for the girls they were checking out the nearby abandoned castle.

"It's pretty dark in here!" Selphie said while she was walking without seeing even what was in front of her

"Yeah it sure is." Tifa said as she was in front of all of them

But then they heard a piano play a sad melody which made them feel like they were inside the graveyard and someone just died.

"What's that?" Kairi now asked since she was getting afraid

"Someone is playing a piano here." Rhinoa said and listened to where the melody came from

"Shall we call Leon?" Kairi asked as she was getting very afraid

"... No it's not necessary." Rhinoa said and she found out which way the melody came from and she followed the melody and the rest followed until they came to a dark ball area where just a few feet away the piano was playing

"Is anyone here?" Rhinoa asked the darkness but there was no reply

So they went to the piano and when they looked they saw that the piano was playing by itself and no one was sitting and playing it, so they were getting afraid and they wanted to run but suddenly they heard a big bang and they guessed that it was the door

"I have been waiting for visitors for a long time!" Some voice said in a happy way

"Who are you!" Tifa nearly shouted instead of asking

"Me? I am just a hungry old hunter and I think that my time to eat has come." They were getting afraid now as they couldn't see and the man or monster somehow sensed that and some lights went on but they didn't see him or it

"Where are you looking I am right here!" The sound came from above them and as they looked up they saw a bloody and slimy monster that looked much like a devil since it had big horns on its head and long sharp teeth but his body was as black as a Heartless and he was coming down fast and they ran just in time

"I have waited far too long and I must eat before I will die out of starvation!" He lunged towards them but it missed by an inch and Rhinoa quickly started to cast a spell but the monster was faster and he hit her with it's long tail and she flew to the wall

The monster quickly ran towards her but Tifa took it by its tail and swung it around a bit and threw it to the wall making huge cracks and the monster stood up and was getting very pissed

"You dare defy me!" It came in rushing towards Tifa but Kairi and Selphie now attacked the monster, Kairi was slashing her Keyblade towards it's head but it was as hard as rock and Selphie was attacking from a distance swinging her whip as it hit the monster, so Tifa quickly closed in the distance and she took it by it's neck and threw it out of the window and it fell down with a screeching sound and soon thereafter they heard a splashing sound most likely it fell in the water

"Is it dead?" Selphie asked while she was looking around to see if Rhinoa was allright but she couldn't see her anywhere "Where's Rhinoa?"

Tifa turned around to see where Rhinoa lastly was but she was gone so she called her name a few times but there was no reply

"Kairi call Leon and tell him that we need help because I think that something took Rhinoa."

"Okay." So she took her mobile from her pocket and she quickly dialed Leon's number and after a few times ringing he finally picked up and answered with his usual tired way

"Leon! We need help, we defeated some kind of monster but Rhinoa has gone missing!"

"She what! I will be right there!" Leon hung up and the others saw that something happened

"Something took Rhinoa and there are monsters in the castle."

"I will go with you!" Riku quickly said and Sora as well

"I can't leave Tifa alone so I am coming." Cloud said and joined Leon

"Okay I want the rest of you to take care of the town and we will be back when we find Rhinoa." Leon said and they all nodded and then they left and a half hour later they came to the castle and it started to get dark already so they went inside with their weapons prepared.

"Whoa! It's pretty dark here." Riku said since he couldn't see what was in front of him

"I will call Tifa and see where they are." Cloud said not waiting for a reply and took his mobile and dialed Tifa and they heard a mobile ring near them, as they got closer to the sound they could see that it was Tifa's mobile as Cloud's number was on it.

"What happened here?" Cloud asked not expecting an answer and he turned of his mobile

"We must find them!" Leon said and he started running but not knowing where he may end up and the rest followed until they came to a place where was light and they could see candles and a big desk with a long chair and some cages that were covered with a blanket so they walked for a while until a voice suddenly came from behind the chair

"I guess that you too want to die." A man said behind the chair

"Where's Kairi?" Sora asked him angrily

"My my my. The Keyblade hero is here also huh? I guess this is my lucky day."

"Who are you!" Leon said while he took his Gunblade and went into an fighting position

"My name is Saix but who are you?" He turned his chair around and they could see that he had the organization clothes on and he had long blue hair and a big scar on his face

"The name's Leon, now where's Rhinoa and the other girls?"

"Oh you mean these people?" He pushed a button and the curtains fell down from the two cages and they could see Rhinoa and the others unconscious inside

"Rhinoa!" Leon ran to her and he tried to open the door but instead he got an electrical shock and stepped back

"My apologies but I have further use of them."

"What do you mean?" Cloud now asked and took a fighting stance

"I will make some tests on them and then they will come back to you, it's as easy as that."

"You better not touch them otherwise I will cut your head off!"

"Well let me see how you will do that when you are dead." And he pushed a button and some organization members came inside and one of them was the same man that they found in Olympus.

"We are here!" The black haired man said and he prepared his two kind of guns

"Good, now kill these people and then take these girls to our laboratory."

"As you wish!" And the man was about to fire his guns but the other blonde guy slashed him in his torso and he fell down and before the other organization member noticed it he already slashed his head of and he was heading straight towards the cages

"What the hell are you doing Demyx!" Saix now stood up and was getting furious

"I am not a Nobody like you!" And he opened the cages with some device and then he headed towards Saix with his swords ready

"Take the girls and leave!" He said and then went in combat with Saix and Leon quickly took Rhinoa and Selphie while Cloud took Tifa and Kairi and they were leaving but Sora looked at Demyx and then they suddenly disappeared and Sora and Riku went in front of Leon and Cloud, and they opened the doors until they finally came outside and they were heading back to the house that they found 2 days ago and when they got inside they quickly put them down on the beds and they all sat down

"Riku go to Barret and tell him to bring some water as the water here is finished while we check on them." Leon said and Riku nodded and left

"Are they going to be okay?"

"I think so Sora, it's just a few scratches." Leon answered while checking their temperatures

And a half hour later Riku came back with Barret and a barrel of water

"Are they going to be okay?" Barret asked Cloud while he put down the barrel

"They will be fine after a day."

"I hope so, coz I feel like I wanna kill this Saix guy!" Barret said and launched his fist hard on the table making it crack

"What will we do about the monsters in the castle?" Riku asked while looking at the castle through the window

"We will kill them tomorrow when everyone is healed then we will take some flashlights and go inside and kill the monsters then we will make some lamps inside and we will make that our base." Leon said

"Fine by me!" Barret said still angry a bit

And the rest nodded.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five: Are they alive?**

A day had passed and Cid woke up with a headache and when he looked around he saw that he was in a garden full of flowers and he could see some houses in the distance and some people were walking around but he couldn't see the sky, so he looked around to see Zane or Yuffie and he found them but they were still unconscious

So he tried to wake them up but they didn't so he took some water from the river beside him and he threw it on them and they woke up with a scream and the people looked at them wondering what was happening

"Damn it Cid!" Zane said angrily as he took the water away from his face and stood up

"Took some time, look where we are buddies!"

They both looked around and they were surprised but not because of the village, they were surprised because they survived the fall

"Where's Aerith and Zack?" Yuffie asked while she too stood up

"Dunno, haven't seen em!"

"Shall we check the village?" Zane asked Cid since he thought of him as the leader and Cid liked to be the leader sometimes

"Well I think that's better than just sitting around here!" Cid said and walked towards the village and they followed until they came inside, the people somehow didn't look all that friendly and they kept on staring at them

"What's with these people?" Cid asked as he saw that they were just staring at them so he stopped walking and signaled the others to stop

"What's wrong?" Yuffie asked since she didn't want to stop walking and she wanted to leave this place soon

"There's something with these people, they just keep on staring at us."

"I don't know if it is just me but are the villagers all women?" Zane asked since he only saw women

Then Aerith came out from a house and she signaled them to come inside and they did

Once they got inside they saw wooden floors and stone walls with some pictures on them but strangely they were all women as well and the person inside was also a woman, Aerith and Zack were sitting in front of the woman and there were a few chairs with a table and they sat down there

"Now then let me continue, you must go with Sephiroth and cooperate with him-" but before she could continue Cid went in an outburst and they shocked

"The hell! You want her to cooperate with Sephiroth! He wants to destroy the worlds and get ultimate power and you are telling her to cooperate with him?" Cid was getting very pissed and so was Zane as he endured a lot of pain from Sephiroth

"I can't help you with that after he tried to kill me!" Zane said also angry now

"Who are these people?" The woman asked Aerith

"They are Aerith's former friends." Aerith said with another voice that wasn't hers

"Aerith? Are you okay?" Yuffie now asked as she was getting afraid

"Aerith is no longer alive and I think you all knew that already but it seemed like you all don't want to believe it." Zack said now with another man's voice and it sounded a lot like Sephiroth

"But they helped me on the Promised Land!" Zane said while he wanted to take his sword but remembered that he left it in the airship and he hated himself now for listening to her

"They helped you on the Promised Land but it exploded and they died along with it." Zack said and started to change form and so did Aerith and the woman and a minute later Sephiroth was in Zack's place and some woman with horns on her head was in Aerith's place and, the woman that was sitting now was a monster with sharp teeth and she was covered in blood.

"Why the hell did you bring us here!" Cid said as he was getting very angry since he got fooled by appearance

"We wanted to make you suffer as I did right Jara?" Sephiroth turned to look at the woman with horns but suddenly there was an explosion outside and it was followed by the sounds of machine guns so they quickly took the chance and they ran outside and they saw some tanks and some people shooting the monsters who were women before.

"Let's get out of here before they will think that we are the enemy!" Cid said and quickly ran towards the garden and he looked around to see if there was a button to get out of there but he couldn't see anything and Sephiroth and the others now got out of the house and they attacked the people killing them swiftly but suddenly there was a loud sound and they fell unconscious

A few hours later Cid woke up and found himself and Yuffie, Zane and another blonde girl in a big cage

So he stood up and looked around a bit and he could see that it was some kind of military base and he remembered the signs on the tanks "Shinra" and a few minutes later Zane woke up but he felt very weak and he vomited some blood again

"I hate this!" He said and stood up weakly and walked towards Cid

"You are getting worse aren't you?"

"Yeah but it won't get the best of me."

"Well at least you should try and stay alive."

"Yeah don't worry about that."

Then a man in a Shinra uniform came and opened the door and came inside

"The boss wants to see you!" The man said while he put some handcuffs on them and he took them both to a small room where there were some iron handcuffs attached to the wall and an leather whip was hanging there as well

Some people were waiting in front of them in black suits and he put them down and Zane remembered what happened before when they did the same to him and beat him up and he knew it was going to happen again as they would most likely be questioned for why they were there and they won't believe him

"Who are you people?" The man in the middle asked

"Perhaps you should ask your boss that question as he surely knows it." Cid said

"I am the boss." The man said

"Oh really? I am sorry but the last time I saw you people, Rufus was the boss." Cid said in a sarcastic way

Then a door opened behind the men in suits and a man in a white tux came inside and he had a bandage over his eye and Cid directly remembered him

"It seems like you haven't forgotten us Cid." The man said while he stepped in front of the men

"What the hell do you want Rufus?"

"I heard that your friend has Heartless in him and I would like to see that power."

"The Heartless no longer has control over me!" Zane said and he was getting angry now

"Well with extreme pain the Heartless will be back." Rufus said and winked to the man who brought them here and he took Zane and tied him to the iron handcuffs and he took the leather whip from the wall

"You will see soon enough Cid."

"I won't let you touch him!" Cid said and was getting pissed and he tried to stand up but the man took the whip and hit him hard on his back and he shouted in pain and fell to the ground

"Now stay quiet and watch. The only way how to release a Heartless is to give the human more pain than it can handle." Rufus signaled the man to start hitting him and he hit him hard on his back and he shouted and it went on like that for a long time and Yuffie and the other girl woke up from the shouting and Yuffie recognized the shouts.

"Not again!" Yuffie said as she wanted to get out of there and help him this time

"Who are you?" The girl asked

"I am Yuffie and you?" Yuffie asked when she saw a girl with short blonde hair and she was wearing an orange sleeveless shirt with green shorts

"Rikku… Is the man shouting a friend of yours?"

"Yes, only more than a friend though."

"They did the same too many other people and they mostly come back dead or they don't come back at all."

"You think that they will kill him?" Yuffie was now getting afraid as she didn't want to think about that day

"They always say that they want to awaken some kind of monster inside the person who has something special, and it seems like your friend has that otherwise they wouldn't have taken him."

"How do you know all this?"

"My... brother died because of them and they told me the same thing that they said about the others "It didn't work" I hate them if I can just get free then I will kill them."

After another hour of screaming he became so weak that he couldn't shout anymore and the blood was rushing out of his mouth and his back was covered in blood and Cid was getting very pissed to the extent that he broke his handcuffs and punched the man with the whip so hard in the face that he instantly died

He then quickly released Zane and he took the whip from the ground and he slashed it at Rufus and the others and he hit them hard in their faces making them bleed and he quickly ran outside with Zane on his shoulder and Yuffie and Rikku saw him and he quickly opened the door.

"Quick, they are after us!"

"What happened to him?" Yuffie asked worried when she saw all the blood on his back and face.

"These bastards are freaking monsters they think that they will awaken some power or something and they hit him pretty hard."

Then some men came and they started shooting at them and Cid quickly ran and the other two followed until they came through some forests and they could see that they stopped following them and Cid put Zane down on the grass and he could see that he was still breathing

"Damn them! What were they thinking!"

"Will he survive?" Yuffie asked as she could see that he was in a very bad shape

"I don't know, hell I don't even know how he survived all these slashes!"

But then Zane woke up and he stood up weakly

"Aah! What happened?" He checked his face and he felt blood and he felt like his back was destroyed and then he remembered what happened and he started to get pissed

"You okay Zane?" Cid asked as he saw the pain in his eyes

"I can't lie now can I?" And he coughed a bit and then some more blood came from his mouth

"What do they always want with me?"

Yuffie wanted to go to him but suddenly some Shinra men came and they were too close

"I got him! Fire!" They shot a few rounds and they didn't see at first where they shot until they looked at Zane who was now falling on the ground with holes in his chest from the bullets

"Zane!" Yuffie quickly went to him while he fell hard to the floor so she checked his pulse and there was nothing, he was dead she had lost him

"You can't leave me!" You promised that you would stay alive and stay with me!

Cid was now very angry and he ran towards the three men and he kicked all of their legs and they fell down hard but he could see in the distance more men coming so he had to retreat but suddenly some black smoke came from Zane as black wings splashed out from his back and his eyes opened but they were no longer brown they were now shining red and they looked angry, his entire body was now as black as a heartless

He stood up pushing Yuffie away and he lunged for the men who shot at him and he killed them quickly with his hands which were now claws "Zane?" Yuffie was shocked to see him like this and she couldn't even move as she was both afraid but also happy that he was alive but he wasn't the same anymore and he let out a roar

Then the other Shinra soldiers came and they started firing at him but the bullets fell on the ground as his body had become as hard as stone and he now stretched his arm and fire came flying out of it making the soldiers scream as they went on fire.

Zane now turned his attention to Cid who was beside him and he took him in his hand and he threw him at the tree and then he went to Yuffie and she was getting afraid after what he did to Cid

"Zane please don't kill us."

"I will not stay any longer imprisoned!" Zane said with a voice that wasn't his and he picked Yuffie up from her neck and he could see her struggling for air and while he saw that he smiled "Zane… Please fight… it." Yuffie barely said as Zane started to weaken his grip since it affected him and he was fighting the Heartless in his head

He let Yuffie go and he held his head and started to shout and soon Zane turned back to normal his wings had gone back in his body and his claws had changed back to hands and his eyes had become the same brown eyes that he always had.

Yuffie was now standing in front of him coughing as he slowly stepped away from her and he felt guilty for what he did and wished that he was dead instead of hurting her with his own hands

Cid stood up and he walked towards Zane and punched him in his face making him fall to the ground and he started to bleed again from his mouth and Cid wanted to beat him again but Yuffie stopped him "He is normal now!" She said to him as the tears came down

Cid looked at Zane for a while and saw that he was normal and he stood up and gave Zane a hand but he didn't accept and he stood up and wanted to run away but Yuffie held his arm

"You aren't leaving me again!"

"I can't control this Heartless forever, and I don't want you all to die and especially not by my hands." He turned around now and saw the tears in Yuffie's eyes and he couldn't help feeling guilty

Rikku and Cid were looking as there was silence for a while and Zane gave up and agreed but still worried that he wouldn't be able to control the Heartless within him

"Okay I will come but I will keep my distance though."

So they ran for a while until they came to the big open place where it was still snowing and they could see a bit in the distance the airship so they moved faster and they went quickly inside and Cid closed the hatch and ran towards the bridge and pushed some buttons and the power went back on and the airship started to fly

"We are outta here!" Cid said happily as they could leave that place

"This airship is yours?" Rikku asked because she knew that her father had only found one before

"Yeah and I made it myself."

"Wow that's so cool!"

"By the way what's your name?" Cid asked as he didn't know it till now

"It's Rikku and you?"

"Rikku? Reminds me of Riku anyway mine is Cid and his is Zane." Cid said and pointed to Zane who was sitting alone on the sofa

"That's exactly the same name of my father." Rikku said happily

"Interesting." Cid said in a bored way as he didn't care about her father

While Cid and Rikku were talking Yuffie looked at Zane and she could see that he was annoyed

"Let me out! We had a deal!" The Heartless said in his mind as he wanted to be free but Zane ignored it and lied down on the sofa and closed his eyes

So Yuffie saw that he was talking to the beast and she didn't know if it was a good idea to let him aboard the airship but deep inside her she told herself that nothing like that would happen again

"So where are we going Cid?" Rikku asked once they changed the subject

"I don't know, perhaps we should go back to Hollow bastion?" He asked and Zane now opened his eyes and sat straight

"Could you do me a favor and drop me off in my world?" Zane asked Cid

"Why's that?"

"I want to stay there until this Heartless gets out of my mind."

"You mean that you will die there." Yuffie said since she knew that he was hunted by the police there

"I just want to visit some old friends and try something before it's too late." He said and lay down again and the beast started to talk in his mind again

"Won't you stop talking!" Zane said aloud and noticed that everyone was looking at him

"I don't mean you." He said as he started to talk in his mind

Yuffie knew that she had to do something to get the Heartless out of his mind otherwise they could never be together and she started thinking and Cid was still looking at Zane wondering why he wanted to go to his own world and if what Yuffie said was true since he did avoid the question a little bit

"Well off to his world then." Rikku said breaking the silence

"Are you sure that's what you want?" Cid asked him as he didn't feel good about this favor

But he didn't answer and he looked disturbed so Cid asked him again but a bit louder this time and he finally turned his attention to Cid

"Yes, I think so and there is a lot that I will have to tell Michael about the Garof police department and he can handle them then. After all I got the Heartless inside me there so there might be a clue as to how to get it out of me there." Zane said and stood up to get some water since the Heartless took him over he felt much better for some reason

"Okay we are going to the big world!" Cid said and made his destination the big world and they went in full speed


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six: Hollow Bastion**

Two days later Rhinoa and the other girls had completely recovered and the men had finished the defenses and Leon was busy training the people as the man that made Barret's Gunarm had finished making some guns and swords.

"Okay people you swing your swords like this." Leon said and swung his Gunblade and they tried to do the same but it didn't work so well and they fell down instead

"Come on people! It's not so hard." Leon said and waited until they stood up again and he swung his Gunblade again but they couldn't do it

"Okay! Enough for today, tomorrow we are going to take the same tests as today!" Leon said to them and he went back to his home and he could see that Rhinoa was inside the kitchen cutting the meat

"I'm home!" He said and he put his Gunblade against the wall and sat down on the sofa as he felt very tired from trying to teach the people how to use the sword

"Just a minute!" She shouted from the kitchen and he could hear that she just put the meat on the fire

So he was about to close his eyes but then the bell rang and he quickly stood up and opened the door and as soon as he opened it he saw a man wounded in his arm and he could see that he needed immediate care.

"Help me, some heartless ambushed me." The man said in a low voice

"Okay just a minute." Leon went back inside and took his Gunblade and went to Rhinoa

"Who is it?" She asked while she saw that he had his Gunblade with him

"A man got wounded in his arm as he got ambushed by some heartless so I will go bring him to the medical center and then take care of the heartless."

"Well you better be careful."

"I sure will." And he left and went with the man outside, in the meantime Cloud and Tifa had gotten so many customers that Cloud had to stay inside and help and they couldn't deliver anything

"Cloud this dish is from the people on table three, so hurry as I have already a few more finished." Tifa said and handed him a plate with food and he quickly brought the plate to table three and he could see that the other people weren't so very happy so he had an idea, he went back to Tifa and he told her about it and she directly accepted so Cloud took his mobile and called Reno and he answered bored as usual.

"What is it?" He asked bored

"I wondered if you could help me out in the bar as we have a shortage of workers and I thought that you could help us."

"A waiter? ... Oh what the heck, I guess I could do it." Reno said

"Great but make it quick!"

"Be there in 5 minutes!" Reno said and quickly hung up and went to the bar and once he got inside he could see that the place was crowded and the people were getting impatient so he went to the kitchen where he saw Cloud and Tifa making the food

"I'm here!" Reno said and he was completely prepared

"Great now put this on and give these two plates to table seven." Cloud said and gave him two plates and a tag with "Waiter" written on it then went quickly back to Tifa to help her with cooking

"How will I know which one is table seven?"

"There are numbers on the tables." Tifa now said as she was busy with cooking the meat

So Reno quickly went to table seven with the plates and he put them down slowly with a smile and he was about to go back but a woman at another table ordered him to come and he went, and as usual he made a smile and asked her what she wanted

"I want to make an order." She said in an unhappy way

"Sure what do you want?" Reno asked her and he quickly took out a pen and paper that he always had with him and he wrote down what she wanted and he quickly went back to the kitchen and told them what that woman wanted and Tifa quickly started with the new order that he told her.

"The people just keep on coming today, I wonder what is wrong with them?" Cloud said since he didn't understand why there were so many customers

"Well it's better than none at all right?" Reno said as he smiled the first time to Cloud and surprisingly he smiled back for the first time

"Yeah you're right." And he quickly took some plates and handed a few to Reno and took the rest by himself and they both went outside to serve the people and about three hours later it had quieted down and only one customer was left.

"How many people are left?" Tifa asked them when she almost finished the order

"Well that's the last one." Cloud said while looking in the bar

"Okay, all done!" Tifa gave Reno a plate and he walked inside and gave it to the man

"So what do you think about Reno?" Cloud asked in a curious way

"He can be good I guess, you can ask him to work with us if you don't mind."

"No problem, I have put the past behind me, I guess he could." Cloud said as he looked inside the bar and he saw the man talking to him and a minute later Reno came back

"Cloud he wants to see the owners." Reno said once he came in the kitchen

"Oh boy, is he going to complain?"

"I don't think so."

"Okay let's go then." Cloud and Tifa both followed Reno to the man that was sitting on a chair near the window.

"You wanted to meet the owners, sir?" Cloud asked

"My name is Hawk, please sit down." He said while signaling them to sit

"I guess it's going to be a long talk!" Cloud said in his mind and took a chair and sat on it

"Are you the ones that defeated Xehanort and Ansem?" The man asked them in a low voice

"Huh? How did you know?" Reno now asked since they didn't tell anyone

"I was there." He said and took a sip from his juice

"So you are with the organization?" Tifa now asked while adjusting her chair

"Not exactly, I used to be their researcher but I only did research for them because they would let my sister go if I did."

"Your sister?" Cloud asked because he knew someone that was searching for her brother

"Yes, she is younger than me and her name is Sarah, we had gotten separated when they attacked our village and they said that they would kill her if I didn't do what they said."

"You mean Sarah Weathers?" Cloud asked as he knew that she was searching for her brother

"Yes that's her, do you know her?"

"Yeah we killed Ansem and Xehanort together, didn't you see her?"

"No, I was busy researching until a day later I found them dead on the floor except for Ansem, he was still alive."

"What!" They all nearly shouted at the same time

"A man called Hojo experimented on Ansem's Heartless and succeeded in giving him the Jenova cells and now he is a lot stronger." He said and then took some papers from his bag and showed it to them and Cloud quickly read it and saw that he was correct

"Damn this Hojo!" Cloud said and lunged his fist on the table making it almost flip over

"So you mean that the Ansem that we killed is still... alive?" Tifa asked slowly

"No you killed his nobody but his heartless is still alive and he is now working with Rufus to get hearts."

"Don't tell me that Rufus is also a heartless." Reno said as he didn't want that to happen

"No, he resists the darkness but I don't know how long it will take for the darkness to turn him into a heartless."

"Good that means that there still is a chance to kill Rufus once and for all, just once Jessica comes with her crew then we will go and kill these bastards!" Reno said and felt relieved that he could finally kill Rufus

"Right and I am in!" Cloud said

"Me too! I can't stay away from you too long." Tifa said as she put her hand over Cloud's shoulder

"I will go too." Hawk said surprisingly

"Do you even know how to fight?" Reno asked because he didn't look much like the warrior type

"I learned Anima magic when I became a scientist so I can easily defend myself." He said while he ate a little bit from the food that he ordered

"Well that's great! I guess we will all go and defeat Rufus and the Organization!" Cloud said with a smile as he was happy that he could put an end to Rufus

"So when are we leaving?" Hawk asked

"As soon as Jessica comes." Reno said

"You know? Even though I just met you, I like you already and I think that we can be good friends." Cloud said while he stood up

"Do you have a place to stay at?" Tifa asked

"I am staying at the Inn."

"Well you can forget about the Inn and stay with me for a while." Cloud said as he wanted to know more from what he knew

"You own a house?" Reno asked

"Yeah, I bought it today from an old man who went to live with his daughter."

"No thanks I will another time perhaps." Hawk said and stood up and was ready to pay

"How much did it cost?" He asked while he took his wallet from his pocket

"It's on the house!" Tifa said smiling

"No I must pay something." He said

"C'mon Hawk you will make us angry this way, Tifa said that it was on the house so that's it." Cloud said and started to feel a bit annoyed

Hawk saw that he wasn't very happy about it so he gave in and he didn't pay and he then left

"Well I guess that is it for today?" Reno asked since there were no more customers

"I guess, by the way Reno you did a good job, if you want you can work with us." Cloud said as the words came from his mouth before he realized what he said

"You sure?" Reno asked because he saw that Cloud's face changed a bit

Cloud was thinking for a while as he was his former foe but now that he knows him he is more like a friend and he finally nodded

"Well I guess I could accept then, this isn't a very bad job and it will keep me busy instead of doing nothing the whole time."

Suddenly they heard some ticking sounds on the window and when they looked they saw that it started to rain pretty hard and soon thereafter the lightning started

"So you are both going home in this weather?" Tifa asked them because she knew that they both didn't like the rain so much

"I guess I am staying today." Cloud said and sat down again

"Well I will have to call Rude first otherwise he will get worried." Reno said and quickly took his cell phone and called Rude

Rude as usual didn't talk when he picks up his cell phone so Reno took the initiative and told him that he would stay with Cloud and Tifa this night but he didn't understand why but at the same time he didn't ask and he hung up

"Well that's taken care of, so where do we sleep?" Reno asked as he had put his mobile back in his pocket

In the meantime Leon was following the man to the medical center but he suspected him as he was walking weird not because he was tired or something no he was walking like he didn't know how to walk and that made Leon suspicious.

"Are you okay?" Leon asked him as he started to look different but he wasn't sure since it was too dark to see and the rain also was a problem

"Mmmmblg?"

"Excuse me!" Leon now went closer to the man to hear what he said

"Mmmmblg!" The man said again and suddenly he started to melt in darkness and Leon quickly stepped back when he saw the man melting in front of his eyes and a minute later the man was nothing but a pool of black water on the ground

"What is this!" Leon said and turned around only to see that he was surrounded by Heartless and Nobodies

"What the hell! A trap?" Leon said and directly held his Gunblade up and held it in an attacking stance

"So you are getting smarter huh? Well not smart enough!" Leon concentrated on his Gunblade and it started to shine with fire and he quickly attacked first slashing the three heartless in front of him and then a direct hit to the head of a flying heartless but he didn't notice the nobody behind him and when he looked it was too late since it had struck him in his arm making him drop his Gunblade from pain and fall down

"Aaah!" Leon cried from pain

The Heartless and Nobodies were getting closer and he saw that his Gunblade was near the Nobodies and he couldn't take it

He saw the nobody that had struck him before was now in front of him and it held it's sword up, as he saw this it seemed like the time was getting slower and he could see his whole life pass by and before he knew it everything became dark.

A few hours later Rhinoa was very worried and she called Tifa and asked her to come and she came an half hour later with both Cloud and Reno and they she told them about the man as both Cloud and Reno had gone searching for him but they had little luck since it was dark and raining, the only time they could see clearly was when the lightning struck but also that wasn't enough

"Where do you think that he has gone to?" Reno asked as he couldn't see him anywhere

But Cloud didn't answer instead he saw something on the ground and when he got closer he saw that it was Leon's Gunblade and beside it was blood

"Leon was here!" Cloud quickly said while he looked around to see if Leon was still there but he didn't see him instead he saw more blood on the floor and he was sure that it was Leon's blood as the heartless don't bleed

"Is that Leon's blood?" Reno asked when he saw the blood on the floor

But Cloud was occupied with something else, he saw a pool of black water on the ground and he somehow knew what it was and Took the Gunblade from the floor and took Reno with him back to Rhinoa who was shocked to see them back only with his Gunblade

"What... happened?" Rhinoa asked as she saw that he only had Leon's Gunblade

"We only found blood on the floor but not Leon." Reno said

"There is a chance that he is still alive as I saw a pool of black water and I know that kind of water can teleport you to the dark realm." Cloud said while he was preparing to go outside again

"Take me with you!" Rhinoa said almost as soon as he finished talking

"You can't, only two people can go there, too much will only excite the Heartless."

"I guess I will be the one going with you?" Reno asked

"If you don't mind." Cloud said back

"Nah, I don't mind."

"Okay we will go and find Leon, tell Sora that we are in the Dark Realm and Riku understands what it means."

So Cloud and Reno went outside and they went back to the black water.

"So what do we do now?" Reno asked because he didn't understand how water can help them to get to the Dark Realm

"We step on it and it will teleport us to the Dark Realm." Cloud said and went near the water

"You coming?" Cloud asked before he went in

"Yeah sure." Reno saw Cloud disappear in the water and he followed him and when he stood on it he felt like something sucked him up and he got pulled down and he could see that he was being pulled through some kind of tunnel and it went on like that for a while

In the meantime Rhinoa and Tifa went to Sora and Riku and told them about what happened and Riku looked shocked after that

"Are you sure that he went in the Dark Realm?" Riku asked as he couldn't believe it

"Yes he told me so." Rhinoa said since she didn't understand why Riku was so shocked

"I will have to go and help them then." He quickly said

"Why what's wrong?" Tifa now asked

"In the Dark Realm you come to a place like this but the Dark side and if you go through you can't go back unless you have Dark power."

"So you mean that Leon and the others won't come back?" Rhinoa asked

"Not if I don't go. So I will go and help them." Riku said and was about to head outside but Selphie held his arm

"Don't go." She said as she was worried that he wouldn't come back

"I have to go and save them." Riku said while he tried to release himself but it didn't work

"I will go with him Selphie." Sora suddenly said and Selphie released her grip on Riku's arm

"You will?"

"Take care Sora and Riku, I don't want you both to come back dead okay?" Kairi said behind them

"We sure won't die right Riku?"

"Yeah you can count on it!" And with those last words Riku opened a path and they went through it and a minute later the path disappeared


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven: The forgotten past**

Cid and the others were getting near Zane's world and his mind was full of things of what he should do when he gets there while Yuffie was the whole time walking in circles because she was nervous while Rikku stayed calm yet she understood the situation

So she stayed quiet and finally Cid decided that he would go with him no matter what happens "Okay I will go with you whether you like it or not!" Cid suddenly said shocking the others from their thoughts

"Cid please..."

"No, I will go with you even if you get worse I will help you."

Yuffie directly stopped walking in circles and she stood beside Cid now to show that she agreed with what he said

"Yeah well Cid is correct and I would like to see this through as well." Rikku said and also stood beside Cid

"They are ganging up on you! Release me!" The Heartless shouted in his head

"They are right, if I do get rid of you then I would like to get back" Zane said back in his mind

"You really think that you will get rid of me!"

"Shut up already!"

"Fine I agree but if I turn worse then I don't want you to hesitate and kill me." Zane said as he sat straight

"Hopefully it won't get so far." Cid said

"So are we there yet?" Rikku asked since she felt a bit bored from staying inside the airship

"Just ten more minutes and we will land." Cid said as he turned to look outside and he could see the world and he was preparing the land sequence

So they waited ten minutes until Cid finally landed somewhere in an open area.

"We are down, Shall we?" Cid asked while he took his spear from the wall

"Okay let's go." Zane said and walked towards the door

"He sure is in a rush!" Rikku and followed him

"What did you expect if you have a Heartless in your mind?" Cid asked her but she didn't answer

Once they got outside they could see that the open place was actually a large building before as they could see all rocks over the floor

The war left this place in ruins." I wonder if Michael is still alive"

"You really live in a MAD world." Cid said when he saw all the ruined buildings around him

"Haha! I guess I must be mad as well then." Zane said laughing

"So where do we go now?" Rikku asked

"Umm... We go east." Zane said and started to walk again and the rest followed

"By the way Yuffie, you haven't talked at all is something wrong?" Zane asked as he was worried that she was angry at him

"What... will happen if you get... worse?" Yuffie said slowly

But before he could answer they heard sirens in the distance and it was coming near them fast

"Cid, I think that you will have to go back in the air again." Zane said while checking to see if they were near

"Why's that?" Cid asked even though he knew the answer

"Well the cops won't leave your airship in one piece if they find it."

"Ah damn it! What about you?"

"I will go to Michael and then I will go to the device and see what will happen." And as soon as he finished talking the police had come and they saw them

"Run!" Zane shouted and he ran away and the others quickly followed him and a few minutes later they started shooting until they had come to a small alley and the police lost track of them

"That was a close one." Zane said and sat on the floor

"How did they find us?" Rikku asked while looking in the street to see if they saw them

"I guess they saw the airship and I think that they remembered the last time you came here blasting your way through."

"Damn! So what now?" Cid asked as he knew that they would find his airship

"Well your airship will most likely be ruined so I don't really know." Zane said

"How can you be so calm?" Rikku asked because she was very nervous

"I am not really calm inside but what can I do? I hate to be in charge."

"How about we go to wherever you got the Heartless from and then think about how we will get out of here?" Yuffie now said

"Allright but what about his friend Michael?" Cid asked

"I can go to him if you want?" Rikku said while she was leaning against the wall

"No, there is no need, I will call him from the booth and tell him while you all can go on ahead to my old house." Zane said and took out his last munny and was about to leave

"Where is it?" Cid asked quickly before he left and he turned around

"Here's a map, I have marked my old house already." Zane said and gave the map to Cid and then left around the corner

"Okay let's see." Cid said while inspecting the map and he saw a red circle around a building." Okay this is where we have to go "

"Okay let's go!" Rikku said and was ready to go

"Allright soon we will go back and there won't be any problems anymore." Cid said and he put the map in his pocket and was the first one to leave and Rikku followed him quickly but Yuffie was a bit behind.

She was thinking about the future and what could happen but she quickly shook off her thoughts and followed Cid.

Zane went in a phone booth and he put in a coin and dialed a number, at first no one picked up but a few seconds later came a reply which he didn't expect.

"Yeah who is it?" The man said through the phone with a heavy voice

"Isn't this the Contra Police Department?" Zane asked as he knew that he dialed the correct number

"It was before but now it belongs to the Garof police, do you need something?"

"Is a policeman called Michael Warrens there?"

"Michael Warrens is on vacation, would you like to speak to someone else?"

"Are you sure?" Zane asked because he knew that he never took a vacation

"Allright just a moment..."

A few minutes passed but still he didn't answer the phone and he was getting restless

At the police station the man that was on the phone was George Jackson and he was a detective working for the Garof police Department.

George went to his boss Jacob and he told him about the person that called and as soon as he finished the boss started giving out orders to everyone and a minute later he got a report on where Zane was.

"Okay men! We have got him, I want you to find him and bring him back here and in one piece but if he resists then... kill him." Jacob said while he took his mobile and called Kyle as he was mostly on a mission since he was the best detective.

"Kyle I need you to do something for me." Jacob said

In the meantime Cid and the others where near Zane's old house and they could see that it was burned down as the only thing left was some stones which were still in place

"Damn what the hell happened here." Cid said and looked towards the others for ideas but they just shook their head

"I wonder if Zane knows about this..." Rikku said while she was checking out some grenades that she found in Cid's airship

"Hey where did you get these grenades from?" Cid asked as he was searching for them before but he couldn't find them

"I found them in a box locked up in a locker, I thought that you didn't use them so I took them."

"I have been searching for them for ages!"

"Zane is late!" Yuffie suddenly said because it was already dark

"Yeah tell me about it!" Rikku said as she could see that he wasn't a very punctual person

After about ten minutes Zane had gotten fed up from waiting and he hung up and he stepped out of the phone booth and as soon as he walked through the road towards his house he could hear the sirens from a distance so he started running and a minute later there were three police cars after him

"Damn! I should have known!" Zane said while cursing himself for waiting so long and then he saw in front of him that they blocked the road with police cars

The police men were aiming their guns towards him so he turned around only to see that the police was already behind him and they were already stepping out of the cars and took firing positions.

"Freeze! Go on your knees and put your hands above your head!" A man said while coming a bit near him with some others following

"I think you can handle this right?" Zane said to the Heartless

"Yeah, it's time to eat! "

"Can you just leave it with the killing and leave the eating?"

"Aaargh, fine just this once!"

A minute later when the policeman had gotten near enough to touch him he started to change form.

"The hell! What is happening?" The policeman shouted as he couldn't believe what he was seeing and a second later Zane was no longer there but the Heartless was in control instead and it looked ready to kill with its fiery red eyes

"Fire!" They opened fire on him but they all just dropped on the floor when they hit his body and he took a step forward and he lunged his claws right in the man's torso making him shout in agony and he threw him to a police car

He then lunged for the other one's neck and squeezed it so hard that he died within a second

In the distance Kyle was in his car looking at the massacre and he took his mobile from his pocket and called his boss Jacob

"He has mutated." Kyle said as he saw him burning the policemen that were left

"Great, now bring him back alive, is that understood?"

"Okay, shall I use the Bio weapon?"

"Yes but not too much we want him alive."

"Allright." Kyle said with a grin and stepped out of his car and walked towards the Heartless with a kind of a big gun which was made out of shiny blue metal and it had a handle instead of a trigger.

He walked quickly yet cautiously towards the Heartless as the Heartless finally ripped the last policeman's chest apart.

He came near enough to fire but not before getting the heartless' attention since he wanted to see his face when he shot him.

A minute later the Heartless turned around and saw Kyle and he wanted to attack him but Kyle already pulled the lever and a hot blue light went straight towards the Heartless' chest making it shout as the blue energy struck it in the chest but it didn't give up and leapt forwards and struck Kyle in his arm with his claws making him bleed and he cried out from the pain

He quickly pulled the lever again making the Heartless cry and fall down and soon afterwards he turned back into human form.

Kyle went slowly towards Zane and he checked to see if he was still alive and he was but before he could do anything Zane opened his eyes and gave a quick punch in Kyle's face while he quickly stood up and took the gun from Kyle and held it against his head "You better not follow me." Zane said while he slowly walked away weakly as Kyle eyed him angrily

After about a half hour Zane had reached his old house but something was off because Cid and the others were nowhere to be seen

Zane walked up the small stairs which led to his burned house as he remembered the past…

Zane opened the door and he saw his mother and father at the dinner table waiting for him as his brother immediately ran to him "Zane look! I have finally made a cookie!" His brother said holding a very dark looking cookie in front of his face

"Well well well, let me taste that a second eh." Zane said as he took the cookie from his brother and took a bite from it while his brother eyed his reaction closely but surprisingly it tasted pretty good for him "It's pretty good!" Zane gave him a smile and his brother nearly bursted with joy

Suddenly his father began shouting on the phone as both of them looked at him

"What the hell do you mean it's gone! It was in a tightly sealed room which can't be opened from the inside!" His father seemed very pissed while he opened his laptop and looked for something but he then suddenly shocked at what he saw

"That asshole! How the hell did he get his hands on it!" Zane's mother saw the state her husband was in so she came over to Zane

"Find out what's wrong with your father, I will bring Rune to his room." His mother told him since Zane was working with his father sometimes

"Okay will check it out." Zane replied and his mother went up the stairs as his father hung up but he was furious "What happened dad?" His father sat back down on the chair as he held his hands to his head

"Graham has stolen the experiment; I knew I should never have told him about what I was doing."

"Well it's not like you could have kept it a secret from him… He would have surely found on another way if you hadn't told him." Zane said while he tried to calm his father down

However a minute later the doorbell rang and his mother came running down the stairs to open it and once she opened it she saw someone who they had had just been talking about… It was graham

"What do you want?" His mother asked as he smiled back at her while he held a gun in front of him and shot Zane's mother in the chest and she fell down

"Lydia!" His father shouted and quickly ran towards his wife and saw Graham standing at the door with the gun in his hand "What have you done!" His father shouted at Graham while he tried to stop his wife's bleeding

"Your research is just too great, with it I can be the most famous scientist ever known to mankind and I can't have you around to take the credit for it." He once again pointed the gun towards Zane's father

"I will give you all my research just leave my family alone." Zane's father nearly cried as he begged him to leave them alone but Graham didn't agree

"Sorry, can't do. I can't let anyone who knows about it stay alive." Graham finally pulled the trigger as the bullet went straight in his head while Zane saw both his parents shot down faster than he expected

"Get in there and finish the rest of the family." Graham said and three men with guns went inside the house and they began turning everything upside down to look for them

Zane was already upstairs with his brother as he was calling Michael

"Michael! There are a couple of men inside my house and they just killed my parents… I… Need your help!" Zane said while he kept pacing back and forth not knowing what to do as his brother looked at him afraid

"Allright I'll be there in just five minutes, try to find a way out of the house in the meantime." Michael said over the phone as Zane agreed and hung up

Zane opened the door a little bit and peeked through and saw one of the men going his way so he quietly locked the door and he took his brother's hand and he opened the window which led to the roof and they crept outside

"Okay buddy, we are going try to get down but stay quiet okay?" Zane told his brother while he nodded so they quietly made it down the roof and then they saw a police car pull up in front of them and then he saw Michael get out of the car as he ran towards them but the men inside heard what was happening and they quickly made their way outside

"Michael, they are inside. They just killed my mother and father in cold blood." Zane said angrily as Michael took his gun in his hands since he saw the men were getting out of the house

"Get inside the car; I will get you out of here." Michael said and began shooting at them and Zane and his brother ran towards Michael's car but before they could reach it a bullet struck Zane's left leg causing him to fall down

Zane screamed in pain as Michael quickly rushed over to help him "Hang on; I will get you out of here!" Michael took Zane's arm and took it on his shoulder while they slowly moved towards the car

However they were too slow and Zane realized that since the men didn't stop shooting and another bullet had hit Michael in his arm and another in Zane's back as they both fell down

"Michael just get my… Brother out of here." Zane said as Michael knew he couldn't help him anymore but he could still protect his brother Rune

"I will come back for you, you can count on that!" Michael said stood up and shot at the men so that they had to seek cover and he took Rune who was now completely shaken up as he wanted Zane to go with them but Michael quickly put him in the car and drove off

Finally more police cars were coming in their direction which led the men to run away and leave Zane on the ground

While Zane was lying on the floor half dead he saw a black figure come towards him and not long was it in front of him, it was a Heartless which his father had found and was experimenting on as it looked him straight in his eyes

"Would you like to continue living?" It asked him and Zane nodded slowly

"I will take half of your heart to live in then, just remember if I am out of your heart then it will be broken and you will die. Are you sure you want to do this?" The Heartless asked for the last time but Zane still agreed

"If it … will keep me alive then… So be it." Zane said while the Heartless laughed eerily and stared straight in his eyes

"Hehehe, I knew you would agree…" The Heartless disappeared from his sight and Zane looked up at the moon trying to touch it as he held out his arm

"I can't believe I had to go this far just for him…" Zane said and closed his eyes and a black smoke came inside him as the Heartless occupied a part of his body and not long after that he opened his eyes again but they were now fiery red

Once his vision of the past disappeared he finally understood everything and he knew that he could never get rid of the Heartless inside of him

However once he got inside the burned down house he saw Kyle and Jacob and another man beside him, George Jackson he was a good looking man with fine brown hair and he had glasses on and he wore a grey suit instead of a police uniform

"Well if it isn't Zane, long time no see." Jacob said pointing a gun towards him

"Well I must say that I never expected to see you here." Zane said as he also had two guns pointed to Jacob and Kyle

"How about we settle this quietly eh… Just give us your power and then we'll let you go." Jacob said grinning but Zane disagreed

"I guess you really don't learn after all do you?" Zane said since he felt fed up from his delusions and then he saw Cid and the rest slowly sneaking behind them

"It's best that you drop your weapons before this will turn into a bloodbath." Zane said but Kyle laughed at him when suddenly Rikku stole George's gun and held it against his head as both Cid and Yuffie held their weapons at Kyle and Jacob's backs

"Now this is unexpected." Jacob said amused "But you see I don't quite think you know how qualified I am."

Jacob suddenly turned around with great speed as he took Cid's spear and hit him hard with it and then threw it at Zane but he dodged in time

Rikku quickly shot George a few times in the chest but she then had to take cover behind some stones as both Kyle and Jacob were shooting in her direction

"Damn this man doesn't care about dying!" Cid shouted beside Rikku with Yuffie beside him and Zane was quickly shooting at Jacob as he hit him in his arm but it didn't seem to slow him down at all

"This place is crazy! I'm getting out of here!" Kyle shouted since he knew they were gonna die if they stayed there but Jacob wouldn't listen to reason

"I'm gonna kill you Zane! And then I will take whatever power it is that you got and make it mine!" Jacob now went in Zane's direction but little did he know Zane was already behind him

"You're one hell of a delusional man." Zane said as Jacob turned around but before he could do anything Zane shot a few bullets in his chest and finally one in his head while Jacob dropped dead on the floor

"Let's get out of here before the police come." Zane said and they all quickly got out of the house and they rushed back to the airship

Once they reached the place where the airship was, they saw around six police cars with around twenty policemen there patrolling around the airship

"This is not going to be easy." Cid said while they were hiding behind a building as they saw the policemen

"Well there is no way to sneak past them so the only thing left is to fight them." Zane said since they knew that was the only choice left

"Allright we need some distraction so that we can move in." Zane said while he looked around for ideas and Rikku was just the one who had an idea

"I took a few grenades from Cid's airship." Rikku said

"Allright you'll throw a couple grenades on the opposite direction and then we move in." Zane said while Rikku went to her position and she threw a grenade opposite of the airship

Around ten policemen went quickly to investigate and they quickly made their to the airship while they were distracted until the policemen who were still left patrolling saw them and then the shooting began

Both Rikku and Zane began shooting the policemen as three of them were down and only seven were left

"Another grenade!" Rikku shouted and threw a grenade to the policemen and two more were caught in the explosion but the others jumped out of the way which gave them a clear run to the airship

Cid quickly reached the door and he inserted the password as the door opened and they all went quickly inside while the policemen were coming back and he closed the door as soon as they were all inside

They headed straight for the bridge in order to take off while the policemen were banging on the door trying to get it open

"Allright time get off this crazy world!" Cid said and entered some codes on his computer panel and they went with high speed into outer space "Yeah baby! We are gone from here."

Zane and Yuffie both dropped on the couch since they were both dead beat from all the late action

"So did you find out how to get the Heartless out of you?" Cid asked but Zane shook his head

"I finally remembered how I got it… And if I take it out of me on any way then I will be a dead guy." Zane said as they looked confused at him and thus he told them about what he remembered

After a couple of hours he told them about everything that happened including his memory loss and afterwards they were all quiet until they finally gave in and decided to return to Hollow Bastion


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight: The Dark Realm**

Cloud and Reno were searching for Leon in the Dark Realm but they didn't have much luck as it was very dark and it was like an empty world since there were no obstacles at all only darkness

"Damn this darkness! It's pissing me of!" Reno said because he couldn't see a thing

"We will soon get out of here." Cloud said trying to believe it himself

"Yeah right, I don't see a thing so how do you expect us to find Leon and get out of here?"

"Let's just look." After an half hour it started to get lighter and they could see in the distance a man and a boy on the floor, so they ran towards them and when they came near them they recognized them

"Laguna! Ziad! You are alive?" Cloud shouted and tried to wake them but only Laguna woke up

"Aaah! Where am I?" Laguna asked while he tried to stand up

"We are in the Dark Realm buddy." Reno said as he wasn't pleased with the Darkness even though it was a bit lighter

"How did I get here?"

"How the hell would we know!" Reno said and started walking towards the light

"Come on!" Cloud said and took Ziad on his shoulder and they walked towards the light

In the meantime Sora and Riku found Leon but they were quickly surrounded by Heartless

"Damn! This is not good." Riku said as he and Sora could only fight because Leon lost his sword

"Sorry it's all my fault, I should have been more careful." Leon said while he took a fighting stance

"How do you expect to fight without a weapon?" Sora now asked as the heartless were coming closer

"Well if Tifa can fight with bare hands then so can I." Leon said and quickly punched a heartless in the face and it disappeared

"See? Not too difficult."

"Alright just take care of the heartless that shoot." And then they all went in full force against the heartless, Riku slashed a few horned heartless while Sora was with Leon slashing the heartless on the other side while Leon in the back punching and kicking the heartless that tried to attack from the back

Then some heartless with some kind of guns came towards Leon.

"Sora help me out here!" Leon shouted as he saw the heartless with guns

"Okay you take care of these!" Sora quickly changed place with Leon and he made quick work of the shooting heartless but he found out after that, that he had been shot in his arm and it was bleeding

"Damn, this is really not good." Sora said looking at his wound for a minute and then he looked in front of him and he saw a whole army of nobodies coming towards them

"Riku, Leon! We have company!" After they heard Sora shout they looked towards where he was looking and they saw about hundreds of nobodies coming towards them

"No way! We will need some help." Riku said and a minute later Cloud and the others came running towards them with Laguna and Ziad.

"Cloud?" Leon shouted as Cloud threw him his Gunblade and he caught it and went quickly in an attacking position

"What are you doing here?" Cloud asked when he saw Sora and Riku

"We came to help you and Leon and then get out of here as we can't get out of here except with the power of darkness."

"Okay now that we are all here let's kick some Heartless!" Reno said with a grin and took his Nightstick.

"Count me in! I won't let my son die now will I?" Laguna said and reloaded his machine gun as while looked at Leon with a smile

"I am ready." Ziad said as he already woke up on the way and took his handgun from his holster

"Time to finish this!" Cloud said and went in an attacking position beside Leon

"Don't worry…Dad. I won't die here." Leon said and concentrated on his Gunblade and it started to shine

"No more Darkness!" Riku said and went in an attacking position beside Sora

"For the Light!" Sora said and then the war began while they ran towards the nobodies as they come closer and closer until they finally clashed swords, they quickly killed the first Nobodies but the nobodies after that had guns and axes

"We will kill the Nobodies with the guns while you guys take care of the axes!" Cloud said and went running towards the gun nobodies with Reno and Leon behind him

"Okay cover me!" Sora said and went quickly with Riku towards the axe Nobodies while Laguna and Ziad were shooting the Nobodies that came near them and avoiding the gunshots

"Sora look out!" Ziad shouted and Sora quickly noticed the axe being thrown towards him and he ducked just in time and he went running towards the nobody and quickly slashed it in half and went on fighting the other nobodies while dodging the gunshots.

"Okay they are down!" Reno said as he struck the last nobody with his Nightstick.

"It's clear over here now!" Riku said while looking around to see if there was more

"That's not right, there were a lot more." Ziad said since he knew that there were a lot more nobodies

"I agree with Ziad, I think that there is something wrong." Sora said while he checked to see if there was any trap but he couldn't see anything except darkness

"What does it matter?" Reno said but suddenly the darkness left and they were back in Hollow Bastion but it was more like a battlefield as the houses were on fire and people were getting slaughtered by heartless and nobodies and even the sky was burning red.

"What the hell is happening?" Cloud looked as he remembered what happened in Nibelheim and now it was happening to Hollow Bastion but this time it wasn't Sephiroth, it was Ansem.

Ansem looked now more pale and he had shining yellow eyes with a red hood on and he was wearing a red cape with a black shirt which had chains all over and he had dark red pants on as if it were blood and he was slaughtering the people alongside the heartless with an axe which was dripping with the blood of the people that he killed.

"Die for me my fellow men and help me achieve the powers of the heart!" Ansem shouted while he was killing more people with his axe which seemed to never stop swinging

"I will get you Ansem!" Sora shouted and he took his Keyblade in his hand and ran towards Ansem with his Keyblade high and the rest quickly followed him and Ziad and Laguna already started shooting the heartless that came near

"Hahahahahaha! You will never defy me! You will be lost like your friends!" Ansem quickly chanted something and just when Sora wanted to strike he struck a barrier instead and fell down.

Everyone shocked to see how strong Ansem had grown but they knew they had to do something in order to stop him from destroying their world and people.

Riku went towards Sora and helped him stand up and they looked to each other for a while.

"It must be done." Riku said as he looked at Ansem and then towards the dying people and finally he turned to look at Sora

"For the light." Sora said and they clasped their hands together and they started to chant a spell together and after a minute light and Darkness started coming from them and to the sky and Sora and Riku got lift up in the air as they shone both with Light and Darkness and after that a beam of light came from between them

It struck the sky and it made a huge hole in the clouds and a minute later the clouds had gotten darker and it started to rain and then it finally came.

A huge tornado was forming and it was heading towards them and Cloud and the others tried to move but they were still stuck between the barriers and the tornado came nearer as it destroyed the houses when it finally came near them.

Ansem had looked at it since it appeared with eyes full of hatred and he called out "Fokanon" as it came near him and sucked him in the tornado while the heartless too were taken by it but the people were somehow protected from it as were they.

It took about an hour for the tornado to finally disappear but it took a lot of houses with it and the heartless and nobodies were nowhere in sight.

Hollow Bastion began to shine again as the clouds had disappeared and the sun was shining now but the place was still on fire and then Riku and Sora fell hard to the floor, Cloud and the others quickly checked on them and they could see that they were still breathing.

"What about Rhinoa and the others?" Leon asked since he could hardly see anyone still walking but then Rhinoa and the others came running towards them.

"Rhinoa!" Leon shouted and he quickly took her in his arms while Tifa did the same with Cloud and Kairi also came running but she didn't see Sora at first but then she saw him on the floor with Riku beside him so she ran quickly towards him with Selphie right behind her.

Irvine was right behind them but he was holding his rifle in his hand as he was looking around to see if there more heartless and there were still more and he quickly shot the first one that he saw in the head and quickly turned as he heard a rock fall but stopped as he saw a man with a blue shirt and a tie with brown pants and he had glasses on and he quickly stopped when he saw Irvine pointing the rifle at him but Irvine lowered his weapon and he moved towards them again, Cloud saw him and he thought first that it was another man but when he came closer he could see that it was Hawk.

"It seems like you still survived." Cloud said but he could see that Hawk had a lot of bruises

"It seems like it, but my books didn't." He said with an annoyed look

"Books are replaceable but lives aren't." Irvine said behind them and it seemed like he was there already for a while

"True true but these books had all my research in it but ofcourse it's better than losing a lot of people, and from what I can see that a lot of people died this day." Hawk said as he looked around and saw a lot of people dead on the floor including children, they lay all lifeless on the floor.

Ansem didn't care about anyone even if it meant innocent children, he lost his heart to darkness and he no longer cares about the city or the people that he once tried to protect.

"Damn this Ansem! Where is he!" Barret shouted as he was looking around for Ansem with Marlene close beside him

"He should be dead by now." Reno said while he looked at the houses that were still burning and suddenly something struck his mind, he didn't see Rude anywhere so he started to run around and he lifted up some wood and dead bodies but he couldn't find him

"Where's Rude!" Reno asked out loud with a look of fear on his face

"I don't know, I haven't seen him since Ansem attacked." Irvine said when he could see that he was shocked

"….. He tried to save some people in a building but…" Rhinoa couldn't continue as it was very cruel what she saw and she still couldn't forget it but also she couldn't say it

"But what!" Reno was now getting very angry

"He died while he tried to save some children that were trapped in a house but the house was on fire, yet he still went inside and he took the children but when he got to the door a big piece of burning wood fell on top of them and well… he got stuck underneath and only one child got out alive." Barret said since he knew how it felt to lose someone dear

"Rude is… dead?" Reno almost looked like he was going to cry and he did, he started crying very loud because Rude was the only friend he had and he felt like his big brother and now he was gone

"This can't be happening!" Reno shouted louder but no one objected as they knew that it was hard to lose someone

"I think I am going to try and help… extinguish the fires." Irvine said and quickly ran away even though he didn't know if there still was water or where he would find it but he knew one thing for certain he couldn't stay there just looking and doing nothing while the people are being burned in their homes

"Okay we have to work together to extinguish the fires so I want all of you to go and find some water and help the people okay?" Leon was talking very loud and everyone nodded and they quickly went to do their duties except for Kairi and Selphie and he could see that Sora and Riku were still unconscious so he quickly called Ziad back

"Ziad could you look after Kairi and Selphie for me? Because I am sure there are some heartless left."

"Sure, I will keep them safe."

"Thanks." And Leon quickly left now to take water and Ziad and the others were now alone with the fires.

"They will be fine." Ziad said as he could see that they were very worried

"I couldn't do anything to stop Ansem, I… I feel so small. I just stood there staring at him while he killed all these people…"

"It wasn't your fault that Ansem suddenly appeared and locked us in some sort of barrier." Selphie said

"Why does he do all this? Doesn't he have any heart?" Kairi asked with a sad voice

"Not anymore, he is a Nobody now and he seeks the hearts which is why we will stop him soon enough." Ziad said while he looked around to see if he could see anyone still alive but only saw burned corpses and houses in fire

In the meantime Leon and the others were working hard to extinguish the fires and an hour later they heard a loud sound of an engine

"What is that sound?" Barret asked as he looked around to see where it came from but suddenly an airship flew over them and it was heading towards the city's border

"An airship?" Hawk looked surprised as he hadn't seen an airship his whole life

"Let's go it's probably Jessica!" Irvine said and ran before them towards the border and the rest quickly followed

As they came to the airship they saw that it was colored yellow and red with fire figures on it and it had looked a lot like Cid's airship but this one lacked his touch

A minute later the door opened and four girls came out, the first one had red long loose hair and she had a red t-shirt with a red blouse on and she wore black jeans, the second one looked similar but she had brown hair also loose but she was little bit smaller and had a white green dress on.

The third one had blonde hair in a ponytail and she wore a blue jacket and she had jeans on, while the last one had red hair also in a ponytail and she had a white T-shirt on with a blue skirt.

They walked slowly out of the airship as they saw that the city was in fire.

"What happened here?" The woman with red loose hair asked

"It was Ansem, Jessica." Leon said and looked back at the burning houses

"What! But how? We killed him didn't we?" She was very shocked to hear that Ansem was still alive as he had killed a lot of her people before and he is still alive

"It seems like he had become a Nobody, and he wants to have hearts now for power and revenge." Reno said as he came beside Leon

"Huh? Sarah?" Hawk was surprised to see that his sister was there with Jessica, even though Cloud told him that, he couldn't believe it but now he saw her with his own eyes and he ran quickly towards her and he hugged her as tears came down their eyes

"I knew you were alive somewhere." Sarah said softly but feeling relieved that her brother was back

"Well if you don't mind we have to extinguish these fires, so if you will excuse me." Leon said

"Yeah sure, we will help out right girls?" Jessica turned to look at them and they all nodded

"Great, we will take the East part of the city while you take the West part and Cloud will take the middle of the city, Okay?" Leon asked them and they all nodded and went their separate ways with water buckets

Jessica and the others were quickly out of water and there were still a lot of houses under fire

"What are we going to do? We have no more water left." Jessica said with a fearful voice

"We have to do something!" Reno said now as he felt helpless

"I… I should be able to… use water magic." Jane said

"Really?" Reno was surprised but he wondered as well why she didn't say so earlier

"Are you sure you can do it Jane?" Rose asked behind her since she knew that she couldn't control her magic very well

"I will at least have to try." Jane said and she closed her eyes and a second later she opened them again but her eyes were different, her eyes now shone a shining blue , the wind was getting stronger somehow and her hair got lifted up and she held her hand up then a big splash of water flew to the house quickly extinguishing it and she went on to the next house and the one after that.

While Jane was putting out the fires in the houses they all looked at her with surprise and fear in their eyes, they were surprised to see that she could use such strong magic but there was fear because she didn't look the same anymore, her hair had turned even blue and her whole body had become pale white.

"Jane, please stop this isn't good for you." Jessica said and wanted to take her arm but Jane quickly punched Jessica in her chest making her fall back

"Let me be!" Jane shouted with a voice which wasn't hers

"Wha!" Jane quickly lifted her sister up and strangely she started to shake from cold as her skin started turning to turn blue and her face was starting to freeze and just when the ice reached her eyes Reno kicked Jane and she quickly let go of Jessica and she turned her attention towards Reno

"What's with you?" Reno asked but didn't get a reply instead she touched his face with her hand and he started to feel cold and then he started to freeze up as his face turned blue and a second later he was frozen.

"Reno!" Rose shouted as she saw that he had frozen and she ran quickly towards him but he was already completely frozen.

"No!" Rose shouted as Jessica finally regained her senses and she stood up and began chanting and some light surrounded her and it somehow affected Jane as she tried to hide her eyes from the light with her arm but it didn't work

She started screaming and suddenly her skin turned back to normal and her hair had turned red and finally her eyes were brown again.

Jane fell to the ground unconscious but Jessica started chanting another spell and the rest of the fires from the surrounding buildings went all out and Reno was back to normal but still his skin was blue from the cold.

Jessica had finished chanting and she fell to the ground hitting her head on a stone.

Then the stone had gotten a red color as her head had hit it hard and it was getting redder so Rose quickly held her head up and she saw a hole in her head so she quickly tore a piece of her shirt and she tied it around her head tightly to stop the bleeding.

"Is she okay?" Reno asked shaking from cold

"Her head is badly wounded, she will need some help. Can you stay and watch them while I will look for the others for help?"

"Yeah sure."

"Thanks." Rose quickly got up and ran to look for the others for help

"Okay Irvine you go to that building with Barret and try to put out the fire while Rhinoa and I will try to put out the fire in this building here okay?" Leon asked and they nodded and they went quickly to the building with buckets of water

"Okay I guess we will be going to that mansion than." Cloud said

Yeah, but be careful as I saw that there were still a few Heartless near it.

"Don't worry about us, We can take on anything." Cloud said and left towards the mansion with Hawk and Tifa right behind him

"I guess we will take the last one."

"Yeah, shall we?" Rhinoa asked

"Leon! Help!" Rose shouted as she ran towards them and Leon and Rhinoa both shocked when they saw her face

"What's wrong?"

"You've gotta help us, Jessica and Jane are both unconscious and Jessica's head is bleeding badly."

"Where's Reno?"

"He is freezing because some things happened but I will tell you about that later, right now you have to help me."

"Okay let's go!" And they quickly ran after Rose until they came to Reno, Jessica and Jane.

"What the! Let's take them out of here!" Leon said and quickly took Jessica from the ground while Rose and Rhinoa took Jane and they quickly went to a house that wasn't burned yet and Reno was right behind them

"Put Jane on that couch!" Leon said and he put Jessica on another couch as the house was pretty big and it looked very luxurious inside

"Brrrrrr! I wonder who lived….here." Reno said as he went to the fireplace and started a fire

"I don't know." Leon said and checked Jessica's pulse

"She's fine, she just fainted, what about Jane?" Leon asked Rhinoa

"Hmmm…. She is very cold but … that's about it."

"Good just put her near the fire and she will be fine."

So Rhinoa and Rose put Jane on the floor near the fire and they both sat down and Leon asked Rose what happened and Rose slowly explained

"Whoa! I didn't know they had powers."

"Well I also did not know except for Jane." Rose said softly

"So how are you now Reno?"

"Better, yet I feel like an ice cube!" Reno said in a joking way

"Great, we will let Jessica and Jane rest till the morning then we shall see what exactly happened." Leon said and went for the stairs

"Where are you going?" Rhinoa asked

"I am going to check out this place and see if this person has anything useful." Leon said and then went up the stairs

"Oh alright." Rhinoa went back to Rose and they started talking about Jessica and Jane's powers


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine: Invasion of the Worlds**

A few days after the fires had been put out things were still pretty bad outside as the Heartless had taken over the city and Leon and the others were holding a meeting at Merlin's place when suddenly Merlin appeared out of nowhere and he had a look of fear on his face

"Where have you been you old fool!" Barret asked furiously since he had disappeared for a while

"I found the King and Donald and Goofy, they are in their own world but it seems like it has been attacked by a lot of heartless and they are losing, he needs help!" Merlin said and immediately Sora and the other came

"We are coming with you!" Sora quickly said while speaking on the others behalf

"Just take care eh Sora, Kairi, Selphie and Riku." Cloud said

"We sure will." Sora quickly replied

"Okay we will be going then." Merlin said and they all disappeared

Sora and the others arrived in Disney Castle which now lay almost destroyed and inhabited by Heartless and Nobodies

"How did this happen?" Sora said as he shocked at the look of the castle which was nearly in pieces and there were lots of heartless and Nobodies

"Saix must be behind this." Riku said when he saw the heartless and nobodies teaming up

"Look we must help the King and the rest!" Sora said with another voice and he ran towards them with his Keyblade up as he attacked them they could see that his body was kind of changing from himself to another one which had blonde spiky hair and a beige jacket and black pants and then it went back again to Sora

"Do you see what I see?" Kairi asked and they nodded

"Yeah, let's first get rid of these things!" Riku said and took his Keyblade and rushed in towards them with Kairi and Selphie quickly following him while Merlin started casting spells at the Heartless

Sora kept on slashing and killing the heartless until he got surrounded, he shouted out to Riku who was running towards him but it would have been too late as a heartless attacked him while he looked at Riku

Suddenly there was a big flash and a sound of clashing steel and when the light disappeared he saw a boy around the same age as him standing with two Keyblades, one was black and the other was white and he had a beige jacket and a black shirt and black pants on and he also had spiky hair but blonde

"It's time to work together now Sora, this time I will fight as well." The boy quickly started fighting the heartless and Sora quickly did the same while Riku helped them

Roxas clasped his Keyblades together and a light emitted from it and a second later the surrounding Heartless were gone.

"Whoa! How did you do that?" Sora looked astonished while he just remained with a normal expression on his face

"I trained and you should be able to do it as well but later perhaps." "Well anyway we don't have time, we must save this castle before it falls apart." Roxas said and Sora nodded and ran towards Kairi and Selphie but Riku was staring at Roxas with an angry look

"How come you are alive again!" Riku asked on a stern way

"Ah you! You are the one who defeated me in "The World That Never Was" with your friend right? Well since Diz erased most of my memory I don't even remember why we fought."

"Who is Diz? And by the way you are a Nobody and"- Roxas cut him off at that point

"I am NOT A NOBODY!" He shouted so hard that even Sora and Kairi turned to look at them

"Look I was never a part of Sora until Diz made me, I don't know how he did it but I still remember myself a bit and I have a heart."

"Alright I will let you go for now." Riku said and started searching for the King and the others while Roxas ran behind him as he saw a lot of heartless suddenly appear behind him and when they were about to strike he slashed them and they disappeared.

Riku just kept on running until he came to a long hall with a lot of Heartless and Nobodies. Sora and the other quickly caught up with him and they saw the Heartless

"How are we ever going to get through that?" Sora asked

"I don't know, maybe Riku knows." Selphie said and started looking at Riku with big eyes

"I don't know any way except for fighting through it." He said while he looked at others for agreement but they all just looked at him except for Roxas he nodded in agreement

"I agree with you, I too think that it is the only way."

"What! How are we supposed to fight through that!" Sora asked as he couldn't see how they would survive

"We are Keyblade Masters! This shouldn't be too hard." Roxas said as he took his two Keyblades in his hands

"Yeah, I guess we could." Sora said and looked at Kairi and Selphie and then finally at Riku and they all put their hands on top of the other

"Let's go!" Riku shouted and he took his Keyblade and rushed in towards them with the others beside him

"This is for my memory!" Roxas shouted and landed a few hits on three heartless and quickly went on to some others that were about to strike him.

He slashed both his Keyblades against the first heartless in his torso and then slashed another one in the legs which made it disappear and then went on to some others while Selphie and Riku were fighting side by side, Selphie hit a few with her whip which made Riku look in surprise at her

"Whoa! I didn't know you were that good." He said when he saw how good she was

"Well I trained a bit." She said back and continued fighting and Riku did the same as the Heartless were now advancing but Sora saw something in the distance that disturbed him

"Oh no, your majesty!" Sora shouted as he ran through the heartless and went to the king who was being surrounded with heartless.

"Sora! Just in time!" The King shouted while fighting the heartless

Sora quickly killed all the surrounding heartless and then turned to the king who looked very tired

"What happened here?"

"Sora! I am glad that you came, the heartless have suddenly appeared and killed most of my people and the cornerstone of light has disappeared."

"Is anyone still alive? And where's Donald and Goofy?"

"Donald and Goofy are searching for anyone who is still alive, don't worry they will come. But now we must go down, for we can not hold this place much longer and the heartless keep on coming." The king pushed a button beside his seat and the ground started to move revealing a passage going further down.

"C'mon we have to go!"

"Okay Riku! Follow us down!" Sora shouted and Riku directly signaled the others to follow him and they all went down the passage.

"It's pretty dark here, isn't there any light?" Selphie asked because she couldn't see anything

Then the place started to light up revealing a long passage with suits of armor on the sides

"Is that better?" The king asked and Selphie nodded

"What is at the end of this passage?" Sora asked

There is an exit and another place is a Keyblade of Light which we will go to now.

"Keyblade of light?" Sora asked surprised since he didn't know there existed a Keyblade like that

"But there is one problem, we can't take it out."

"Take it out of what?"

"Just wait you will see." The king said and then he stopped and he lifted his Keyblade in the air as a blue light emitted from it the wall moved away revealing a dark room with something shining in the middle

They all moved inside and they could see two Keyblades stuck in a big crystal.

"Wow! Are they both Keyblades of Light?" Sora asked as he saw one Keyblade shining in silver but the other one wasn't shining, it was black and gold.

"No, one is the Keyblade of Light while the other one is of the Dark."

"So this one is of light right?" Sora asked as he approached the shining Keyblade

"Yes, but until now no one could ta-." Before the king could complete his sentence, Sora took the Keyblade out of the crystal without almost any effort

"It sure feels good." Sora said and swung the Keyblade a bit testing its lightness and he liked it

"So what about this Keyblade?" Riku asked

"That Keyblade should not be held for if someone has that Keyblade he could destroy the worlds."

Hahahahahaha!

"What's that?" Selphie asked afraid

Then the dark Keyblade suddenly disappeared and a man came walking in the distance towards them and then he disappeared

"Where did he go?" Kairi now asked

"I am right here." They turned around and they took their weapons out

"Xehanort! You are alive?" The king said and directly attacked him but Xehanort pointed his Keyblade towards the king and the king froze in his place

"Now that he's out of my way, I will have to destroy your Keyblade!"

"Never! I won't let you get away with this!" Riku said and ran towards him but he got pushed back by an invisible force and he fell to the ground and Xehanort quickly ran towards him and was about to stab him but Roxas was faster as he kicked Xehanort in the chest and quickly swung his Keyblades but Xehanort dodged him and he then tried to stab him but Xehanort disappeared and appeared behind him and held him from his head and then threw him to the wall

"You want a fight, then let's fight!" Sora shouted and ran towards Xehanort with his new Keyblade, and while they approached each other their Keyblades started to shine and then the steel of the Keyblades clashed together as they fought with incredible speed.

Sora tried to kick him but Xehanort held his foot and he fell down and Xehanort struck him but Sora quickly dodged and stood up again and swung his Keyblade a few times but Xehanort blocked them with his Keyblade

Then Xehanort quickly held his hand forward and a dark light came from his hand and it surrounded Sora making him unable to move and Xehanort lifted him up and was about to strike but Riku came in front of him so he hit Riku instead and he fell down.

Sora suddenly moved and broke the darkness around him and he slashed with all his might at Xehanort who tried to block his attack but was too late and the Keyblade went through him and he disappeared but so did the dark Keyblade.

Sora quickly went to Riku who was bleeding.

"Riku you okay? Why did you protect me?"

"You are my friend after all."

"I will not let you down, this Keyblade is of light so it should heal you." Sora held his Keyblade up and closed his eyes and a second later the Keyblade started to shine and then there was a flash and Riku's wound was gone and the king was no longer frozen and Roxas stood up again but it left Sora drained and he fell unconscious

"Sora!" Kairi quickly ran towards Sora and she held him in her arms

He will be fine, the power he used was a bit too much for him but within a few hours he will wake up. The king said

"I will take him." Riku said and took Sora in his arms and went with the king to the exit and the others followed him

Once they came outside they saw Donald and Goofy with a few survivors including the king's wife and Donald's wife and behind them was a very big gummi ship

"What took you so long?" Donald asked angrily

"I told you to meet us in the basement, not the exit!" The king shouted because he was angry that they weren't there to help

"Where are we going?" Kairi asked

"We will go back to Hollow Bastion and I will drop you off there and then Donald, Goofy and I will go look for the cornerstone of light."

"Can't we go with you?" Riku asked but the king disagreed

"No we have to do this on our own. Now hop in before the heartless come here."

So they all went inside the gummi ship and the king went to the bridge and started the ship but when they looked outside they could see the heartless coming

"Quick the heartless are coming!" Selphie shouted as the king tried to make the ship go faster

Then some heartless started shooting at the ship but they missed and they quickly went up and went with very fast speed out of the world as they could see the castle was full of heartless now


	10. Final Chapter

**Chapter Ten: Final Battle**

Leon was everyday now checking for survivors but he never found anyone anymore, before a few days past he would find some people stuck under pieces of stones or some were just wandering. But now they have all disappeared, no more people stuck under stones or wandering around.

No there were only about thirty survivors and the rest had turned into heartless and Nobodies which made the streets very dangerous to walk alone.

"What the hell are we gonna do about these heartless! They just keep on coming and if anyone goes outside they get directly attacked!" Barret shouted as he didn't like to be holed up inside a house

"Calm down Barret we will find a way soon." Rhinoa said trying to comfort him but he only became more furious

"The hell with calming down! I will go out there and kill these sons of a …. Heartless!" Barret went running outside and he had his gun ready to shoot any heartless but then some rockets were fired near him and the heartless that were there were blown away. Barret looked up to see where the rockets had come from, he could see Cid's airship.

Cid had come back and he saw that the city was full of heartless so he thought of shooting them with his rockets, but what he didn't see was that there were coming big airships coming towards him. The airships were black in color and they had wings somehow as if it was alive and it started shooting at Cid with big rockets

The rockets hit his propellers and the airship started to malfunction but the other airship did not wait he shot again a few rounds but this time they weren't rockets, they were heartless and they quickly ran inside the holes that the rockets made.

"Cid this isn't good they came inside!" Zane said when he saw all the heartless which were about fifty going inside the airship

"To hell with them, we will just have to kill them then won't we?" Cid said but then suddenly the airship was pushed from the side

"Oh no they are coming on board!" Rikku said as she knew that they would board the airship

"Allright they play hard, I will play Hard!" Cid pushed the buttons of the rockets and he fired them at the airship in front of him and a minute later it blew up.

"Yeah! Now that's what I am talking about." Cid shouted and took his spear

"Now only the other airship is left and the damned heartless that got inside" But now they got pushed again but this time it was from the other side

"Hell no! This way my airship will be ruined!" Cid was getting furious

"Guess we will have to fight our way through then." Yuffie said as she readied her shuriken

"Okay this is what we are going to do. Yuffie and Rikku you will take out the airship on the left, while I will take out the airship on the right."

"What about me?" Zane asked

"You will defend this place and if necessary try to get us out of here."

"Yeah well that would have been easier if say, I knew how to ride this airship. I better go to the other airship while you defend this place." Zane said and Cid agreed

"But take care all of you this isn't going to be easy, I want you to go to their airship's motor and destroy it or go to the bridge and ride it away." Cid said and they went their separate ways

Yuffie and Rikku made a quick run to the left airship as they killed all the heartless that were in front of them.

Once they come to the entrance of the airship they could see two big heartless guards watching over the entrance

"How are we going to take these out?" Rikku asked when she saw that they also had big guns

Yuffie looked around a bit and she saw a big piece of wood right above their heads which was stuck with a piece of metal

"There can you shoot the metal that holds the wood?" Yuffie asked Rikku while pointing to where the wood was

"Yeah, will be a piece of cake." Rikku aimed at the metal and fired and the wood came down on the heartless making them disappear

"Okay! Let's go!" Rikku shouted and they both ran inside and they went to the right passage

Zane was already inside the other airship and he was making his way towards the motor as he doesn't know how to ride the airship.

Once he came to the motor he saw someone he never thought he would see again, it was Ansem.

Ansem had come to retake the town that he lost before when he gave up himself for power

Zane did not wait and he ran right inside the room and he was about to strike him but Ansem was faster and he blocked his attack

"Hahahaha So it seems like you are still alive eh? It seems like I should have killed you when I had the chance, but you can say that I was naïve at that time." Ansem quickly lunged a few attacks with his new Keyblade but Zane quickly dodged them

"You were supposed to be dead, what do you want from us?" Zane asked while he kept on fighting

"But ofcourse I want my city back which I worked so hard to build." Ansem now held his hand forward and Zane was pushed back but he quickly stood up again but now Sephiroth also came behind him

"So you both have made a plan to destroy Hollow Bastion, well someone is going to die today and it won't be me!" Zane lunged his sword in the ground and held his hands together as he started to engulf in black flames and he then held his hand towards Ansem

A big black flame went right through him as he fell down and then disappeared, Zane now turned around towards Sephiroth who looked amazed at his powers but he didn't care

Sephiroth took his blade and started swinging at Zane but another sword blocked his attacks when a man in a red outfit and brown hair was standing before him and Zane immediately remembered him from before when he protected him from Sephiroth

"I will take care of him, you get out of here." The man said and began fighting with Sephiroth

"It's been a very long time… Genesis." Sephiroth said as the whole airship began shaking

Zane had blown up the motor and now he was running to get out of the airship but the entrance to Cid's airship was too far away which meant he had to make a jump.

Zane went a bit back and readied himself and then began running as he jumped over towards the airship but he missed and fell almost down but someone held his hands before he could slip away

When he looked up he saw Cid holding his hands and trying to pull him up, so he tried with all his might to go up and finally Cid pulled him all the way and they both sat down as they saw the heartless airship going down and they could hear Sephiroth Shouting.

"There is the bridge, but look it's kind of empty." Rikku said when she saw all the machines but she also saw only two heartless

"Well it's easier for us then." Yuffie said and they both quickly ran inside and they killed the two heartless and Rikku started the airship and she was busy trying to figure out how to fly it, while Yuffie stood guard at the door.

"Can you hurry up!" Yuffie shouted as the heartless were advancing

"I am trying…. Got it!" The airship moved slowly away from Cid's airship and she was flying away

"Where are we going to land?" Yuffie asked

"There! In that open area." Rikku quickly said while she made the airship go faster but the heartless kept on coming and Yuffie could not hold it for long

"This is taking a long time!" Yuffie shouted

"Almost down!" Rikku said and a minute later they landed on the floor

"Okay, now only I do this and… it's done!" Rikku said and quickly went back to Yuffie who was still fighting the heartless

"Let's go, it's going to blow in a minute!" Rikku said as she took Yuffie and they both ran through the heartless and all the way out of the airship.

"How long did you say?" Yuffie asked stopping

"A minute! C'mon we have to get to the city!" Rikku said and Yuffie directly started running again and a few seconds later the airship blew up.

Leon and Rhinoa were looking beside Barret to what was happening and they were glad that they finally came back.

"Now that's what we really needed!" Barret shouted as Marlene came outside

"Papa Barret what's happening?" She asked

"Nothing sweetie just we will finally be free again!" He took Marlene in his arms and started to throw her in the air while she was laughing but Leon did not laugh as he saw three more airships approaching

"They will never be able to survive that!" Leon said but then a big shadow came over them and when they looked up they saw Jessica's airship and beside her was another airship but made out of gummi blocks and they headed towards the three airships and started firing at each other

"My lady Jessica, which rockets shall we use?" The woman who was responsible for the orders asked

"Fire anything as long as it hits them." She answered as she saw Cid's airship nearly destroyed

"Fire the homing missiles!" The woman said and a second later the rockets went right at two airships destroying them

"Yeah, only one left!" Irvine said

But before they did anything, the king already took care of the other one and it also blew up

"Something is burning here." Zane said when he smelled fire and as they looked around they saw that the motor was on fire

"Oh no! I need water quick!" Cid shouted and Zane ran quickly to take some water while Cid tried to make the fire down with a blanket but instead the blanket also caught fire so he quickly threw it outside but he could see that they were falling down quick

Zane came back and had two buckets of water, Cid took one from him and they both extinguished the fire but it was already too late as the motor was completely destroyed and they were going down fast

"Damn! Hold on to something!" Cid shouted while they were going fast down

"Cid's going down! Come on!" Leon shouted when he saw Cid's airship going down

Leon ran to the garage where still one car was and he got in the driver's seat and opened the doors for Rhinoa as Barret stayed with Marlene and he sped of towards Cid's airship.

As Leon was driving at high speed he saw Yuffie and a girl he did not know so he stepped on the brakes and let them in.

"What happened?" Leon asked while they got inside and then sped off again

"Two airships suddenly attacked us and came on board, so we went to infiltrate them. I went with Rikku to one of the airships and took it down while Zane went to another one and destroyed before us while Cid stayed in his airship but it just went down."

"Zane is alive?" Rhinoa now asked with a concerned face

"Yes, we found him but many things happened that are even over our heads."

"Oh no, the airship is completely ruined." Leon said when they approached the airship

"Do you think they may still be alive?" Rikku now asked

"Let's hope so." Leon said and stopped the car and everyone got out and they ran to the airship but they could not find a way in.

"How do we get in?" Rhinoa asked as she was searching for an entrance but had no luck

"Wait here is a hole, I will check it out, you all wait here." Leon said while he went inside the hole but it was very dark and he couldn't see much but he could hear some sounds of metal which he followed

"Damn this thing is heavy! Ugh!" Cid tried to take the big piece of metal of his legs but it wouldn't budge

"I guess that makes two of us, I can't get it off my chest however and it really makes it hard to… breath." Zane said

"I hate dying like this. I can't do anything!" Cid shouted and tried pushing it again but this time he lifted it a bit but something was stuck and it fell right on his legs again making him shout in pain

"Cid! Where are you!" Leon shouted

"Is that Leon?" Cid asked

"Yeah, it sounds like him."

Cid quickly shouted back and Leon knew which way to go and a minute later he was with them

"Are ya all okay?"

"Nah, we are stuck can't ya see?" Cid said and tried pushing the metal again but this time Leon helped him and they finally took it off but it hit something and Zane started shouting

Cid now stood up and went to Zane and tried to lift the metal but it was very heavy and they couldn't lift it alone

"What's making this thing so heavy?" Leon asked

"Need a hand?" Cloud asked as he saw what happened and he came quickly on his motorcycle

"We sure do!" Cid said and they all three lifted it together and the metal was finally lifted a bit so Zane quickly got out from under the metal and they let the metal fall as it was very heavy

"Thanks, that thing was really heavy." Zane said while he rubbed his chest

"Okay let's get outta here before this whole thing is gonna blow." Cloud said

"Blow?" Cid asked wanting to make sure he heard it right

"Yeah I saw that this thing starts to catch fire and there is some oil near it so we better hurry."

Cid and the others hurried out of the airship and once they got out they saw that Tifa had also come and Yuffie, Rikku were looking horrified but they did not wait, they quickly went in the car and drove back to Merlin's place

"Are you both okay?" Yuffie asked

"Yeah we'll be fine." Cid replied with a smile

"Nothing to worry about, just some scratches." Zane said as he started to feel better already but what nobody noticed was that his eyes were red again

While Leon was driving they heard an explosion and Cid knew that his airship was destroyed.

"Another day and another pain." Cid mumbled to himself

"Well as long as we live, we can always rebuild everything." Cloud said and Cid agreed

Three months later. Everyone had recovered and became as good as ever.

Cid started building his airship all over again and Zane helped him even though his eyes were still red, he learned to live with it as the Heartless would never leave him and in the meantime he also became the head of the Crimson Scouts who's members were Yuffie, Rikku, Ziad, even Sora and Riku were members but they were most of the time traveling to other worlds with Kairi and Selphie on their gummi ship.

Cloud and Tifa lived together and they ran the 7th heaven with Reno.

Irvine went with Jessica and the other girls including Sarah.

Hawk went with his sister as he didn't want to leave her alone anymore.

Rose stayed behind however claiming that she liked living in Hollow Bastion the truth was that she liked Reno and they would meet sometimes.

Barret stayed most of the time with Marlene and he fixed his Gunarm and made it into a hand so he could do things more easily.

Roxas however had mysteriously disappeared after that battle and no-one knows where he went.

Laguna was mainly running the town with Leon and Rhinoa but he still doesn't talk much and nobody almost sees him but in the end everyone was happy living their lives.

"Where do you think the King and Donald and Goofy went?" Zane asked Cid while he was helping him with repairing the airship

"They probably went back to their world and they will retake their castle." Cid said as he was busy repairing the airship

"How long will it take to fix this airship? You are both busy with it for over seven months!" Yuffie said and gave them some sandwiches

"Thanks, but this baby here will take some time to be good again and I want it to be better than before of course." Cid said as he took a bite of the sandwich

"Oh I just wish it would go faster, so that we can travel the worlds again." Yuffie said while she looked up in the sky and saw that it was another sunny day

Zane looked up as well as he put his arm around Yuffie's shoulder "Once we do travel the worlds we will atleast do so together." Zane said while they both now looked into eachother's eyes

"You always know the best words lately!" Yuffie said jokingly as she gave him a weak punch to his chest and she looked afterwards at his red eyes again which she had finally gotten used to

Rikku was also helping out with the airship as she saw how Zane and Yuffie looked at eachother and saw that they were about to kiss so she jumped on top of them and they fell to the ground laughing "No kissing allowed!" Rikku said joking while Cid looked at them smiling as he felt that the peaceful days had finally come…

The End…


End file.
